


Simply Bodies - Part 2

by DunmerLover



Series: Simply Bodies [2]
Category: SCP Foundation
Genre: Age Difference, Aphrodisiacs, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Consensual sex later on, Declarations Of Love, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Falling In Love, Graphic Description of Corpses, Human Experimentation, Humiliation, Information redacted, Male Masturbation, Medical Jargon, Medical Procedures, Minor Violence, Oral Sex, Porn With Plot, Rape, Rape/Non-con Elements, SCP-049-2 instances, Self-Harm, Seriously you guys wanted this sequel, Solitary Confinement, Some Romance, Some really weird experiments, This will make sense I promise - Freeform, loss of dignity, sexual and non-sexual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-22
Updated: 2019-10-07
Packaged: 2020-03-09 19:21:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 27
Words: 73,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18923428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DunmerLover/pseuds/DunmerLover
Summary: A small war wages at Site Nineteen - a "special" D-class struggles for power against the Foundation, and SCP-049 is caught in the middle.After routine testing with SCP-049 takes an unexpected turn, a small team of researchers is keen to see a repeat of the incident, and is given approval to continue trying. They retrace their steps, hoping to come up with an explanation, and strike gold - they find out exactly what makes 049 tick.Within a callous Foundation - abusing its power in exchange for petty knowledge - a D-class and an anomaly are brought together, time and time again, and they begin to find comfort in one another. She knows her place, yet she wants better for him. A small war wages at Site Nineteen - his special D-class struggles for power against the Foundation, and SCP-049 is caught in the middle.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> [Changed the name of this story. Went back to the working title in the end, I was never all that excited about the one I went with]
> 
> OK so I wrote a small, disgusting fic about SCP-049 before this and you sick, sick people decided you wanted more.
> 
> So here it is.
> 
> All joking aside, I'm working really hard on this. Like the last one I want to do 049 justice BECAUSE HE'S SO FUCKING COOL and HE'S FUCKING HOT, but now I'm writing from the Foundation's perspective too, I feel more pressure than last time to actually make things accurate. I have a degree in biology with an emphasis on molecular/cell biology, and a single year of med school, so I'm gonna take all that and use what I learned to make this the _best damn fic_ I can possibly write.
> 
> Also I feel I should again mention that the smut in the first part of this story is severely non-consensual and parts of it really aren't nice and that I'm writing that because it felt like it made the most sense to me both in the last story and in this one. It's just my own fantasy, and I don't condone any of this kind of stuff.
> 
> And if any of my friends online see this just, _please_ don't hate me for it.

**Due to her crimes against the Foundation, any previous protections of anonymity provided to the member of D-class personnel known as D-22560 and previously named Andrea Cole are, as of publishing of this account, forfeit.**

*

*

J███ Bailey took off his headphones and stowed them in his backpack as he pushed open the door and made his way into the building. He looked around the light, spacious foyer, taking in his new surroundings with a sense of awe despite only being in the HR department. Still, the young man thought to himself as he crossed the room, scanning for a reception of some kind to report to - it was still the HR department of the SCP Foundation.

He was finally here. After what now felt like a lifetime of near-endless graft - the sleepless nights of study, so many of them in his degree, postgrad, and beyond. After clawing his way through a truly disastrous three years to finally finish his PhD - and pass. After all the times he thought to himself, hopeless, that what he aimed for was truly impossible now, yet in spite of that, Bailey had made it happen.

He’d _made it_.

When he reached the front desk, Bailey stood patiently in line behind the man currently being seen to. A grin pulled at the corners of his mouth as he fell into his own thoughts - it turned out getting the qualifications and nailing the interview was just the beginning. The Foundation wanted more than most from its applicants. The vetting process was truly gruelling, and Bailey would’ve been lying if he said he didn’t lose sleep between the day he was interviewed at his _own_ apartment for a full hour and the day they returned his confiscated laptop, and informed him he’d gotten the job.

This stage of the hiring process involved far more personal questions. They’d asked about his political views, whether he was a member of any _radical groups_ , or knew anyone who was. Now _that_ made sense to Bailey, but why did they want to know whether he’d been in a _threesome?_ What did it matter to them if he was in debt or not? Of _course_ he downloaded porn, what guy his age _didn’t?_ They’d even paid his closest friend a visit, his parents - his ex-girlfriend too. Asked them what he was like as a person. What he was like when he got drunk. The whole process, Bailey decided in retrospect, was quite invasive.

Still, none of that mattered now. His ex must’ve told the interviewers he had a heart of gold, he thought as he approached the front desk and smiled politely, yet nervously, at the woman sat behind.

“Good morning,” he greeted just as politely. “It’s my first day here- starting working here, and I was told to report to HR.”

“Of course,” the woman replied. She turned her attention briefly to her computer and got to work. “Can I take a name please?”

“J███ Bailey." His mouth was dry. "I’m a research assistant- I mean, I’m going to be.”

The woman typed, and then pushed out her seat just enough to open a cabinet at her knee height. She rifled through a wad of plastic sleeves, and picked one out.

“Yes, welcome to the Foundation J███,” she said brightly, offering a warm smile as she removed the contents of the sleeve - which Bailey happened to notice at a glance had his own name printed in the corner. She handed him a small slip of paper.

“That’s your e-mail and login for the Foundation network,” she said, before sliding an unbranded tablet into the man’s hands. “And that’s your tablet to access it.”

She looked into his dark eyes and fixed him with a serious gaze. “You’ll log on with _that_ password,” she indicated the paper slip once again. “And the first thing you’ll want to do is change that password. Any note-taking, access of classified files, anything else your role asks of you, it should be done on _here_.”

She tapped the device with the final word. “Unless your supervisors tell you otherwise.”

“...Yeah, sure… okay,” Bailey stuttered.

Finally the woman took an ID card from the sleeve. “And your ID card. Wear this at _all times_ on-site, and don’t admit _anyone_ to the site without one. No ID, send them away. And remember…”

She pulled the card out from its plastic holder and indicated the black strip on the back. “It’s your keycard too. You’ll want this on you as per Foundation protocol, _and_ for access.”

She replaced the keycard and handed it to Bailey. He grasped the lanyard strap and let the card fall against the back of his hand. “Uh… thanks,” was all he could think to say. It was all so much to take in at once.

“If you wait right here I’ll ring your supervisor. They’ll come and get you.”

Bailey nodded with that same nervous enthusiasm as the receptionist picked up the receiver on her desk and tapped in an extension number. The new recruit allowed himself a moment to lean back against the cool desk, and he exhaled slowly. Even now, it hardly seemed real. Soon he’d wake in his bed, back home some thousands of miles away, and realise it all to be a dream.

It wasn’t long before Bailey was approached by a woman in a worn white lab coat, with black hair tied up in a tight bun. She strode over confidently and flashed a friendly grin up at the young man.

“J███ Bailey?” she asked straight away.

Bailey nodded quickly again, immediately noting her accent - either Australian or South African, he couldn’t quite tell which, and offered his hand to shake. The woman took it.

“I’m Doctor T██ Morrigan, one of the senior researchers,” she continued, and let go of the man’s hand. “But just call me T██. Welcome to Site Nineteen, J███… and welcome to the SCP Foundation.”

“Thank you,” Bailey replied. Definitely Australian, he decided. “It’s a pleasure.”

Morrigan wasted no time. Again she grinned like the two of them were old friends sharing an old joke. “You’ll be working on my project, with myself and a couple of others,” she said, turning on her heel and gesturing for Bailey to follow. “And it’s a _damn_ good project - probably the best one happening at the site right now, if I might say so myself!”

Bailey stowed his new tablet in his backpack and then jogged a little to catch up, and after that walked by Morrigan’s side with long strides of his own. He couldn’t contain his own excitement, it was there in his every word. “And what’s your project?”

Again, that wicked grin, all of Bailey’s excitement mirrored straight back at him in it. “It’s probably better if I show you,” Morrigan replied. “There’s something else I want to show you first - before I forget.”

She turned her attention back to the path, and Bailey simply went along with it. He couldn’t deny to himself that twinge of disappointment - he was so eager to get started. He couldn’t quite wait to see what project he'd be working on. They kept on walking.

“So how does it feel?” Morrigan suddenly asked.

Bailey’s head snapped quickly to meet her eye. “Eh-excuse me?”

“Hasn’t been all that long, has it?” she continued somewhat vaguely. “ _Doctor_ Bailey… how does _that_ feel?”

Now it was his turn to grin, ear to ear, and he couldn’t quite meet her eye. As he thought about it, he kept his attention on the stretch of the maze-like corridors ahead of them. “Yeah, it’s only been a couple of months,” he replied, trying to stay modest. “And if I’m honest I’m… I’m still getting used to it.”

“You’ll fit in well here. Most of us researchers started off where you are now - myself included.”

A friendly touch on Bailey’s arm, on top of his smart shirt, and when they reached the end of the corridor they now walked, she swiped her own keycard in the lock to open the door. When they made their way through, Bailey couldn’t help but notice how quiet their surroundings had become.

“You’ll find the opportunities are pretty great if you put the work in,” Morrigan continued.

They passed a couple of guards, seated, who broke away from their conversation as the two walked past them. They stopped at the very end of the corridor. Morrigan turned and stared the assistant down expectantly.

Bailey was hesitant before speaking. “…It’s an emergency exit?” he asked, indicating the sign above the door.

Morrigan nodded slowly. “Not _just_ an emergency exit,” she said excitedly. “Meet SCP-1021-1. In an emergency - and I mean a _real_ emergency, you’ll get to know what’s worth it and what’s not… in the case of a _real_ emergency, you should try and make it here.”

“Okay.”

The young man stared up at the old sign, and didn’t really know how he was meant to feel about seeing his _very first_ SCP object. All he could think was how inconspicuous it was. So… _normal_. Were they all like this?

“C’mon,” the researcher said after a pause, evidently deciding Bailey had been given enough time to take it all in. Again she ushered him away. “I’ll show you what we’re working on.”

*

*

Dr Morrigan smiled again, more to herself than anything as the young recruit’s jaw quite literally hung open in awe. The older man seated at the desk chuckled a little, rolling his eyes at the assistant before turning back to his own work.

“Take all the time you need, J███.”

“Is that…” Bailey couldn’t take his eyes off the dark figure on the other side of the window. Apparently they _weren’t_ all like SCP-1021. “…That’s an _anomaly_.”

“Mmhm. That’s SCP-049. _He’s_ the object you’ll be working with.”

Morrigan navigated pages on her tablet and brought up the relevant file. She handed it to Bailey.

“You’ll want to read this,” she continued. “You’ll be getting to know 049 intimately, and that starts with _that_ information. He’s been here for quite a while without any new observations… but we’ve only recently gotten approval for a new project.”

As Bailey skimmed through the article, eyes darting back and forth rapidly as he read, the gentle music coming through the speakers from the Foundation radio was the only sound to be heard. Morrigan joined her new colleague in watching SCP-049 working through the one-way mirror. Nothing unusual here, she noted, somewhat disappointed - the plague doctor stood over his operating table, still working on his latest corpse - which had visibly degraded since Morrigan had last seen it hardly an hour ago. SCP-049 worked fast when he was in the right frame of mind - and the help only made him more productive.

“He’s an object on a mission, he is. It’s all in that article but what you need to know is… 049’s trying to cure us of our _illness_. He believes we’re all sick.”

The man’s black eyes fixed in place on the screen as his supervisor spoke. “Pestilence.”

“Mmhm. Historically… the Foundation’s been trying to figure out what that might _be_ \- and it’s _not_ what you’re thinking. Since we haven’t had much luck with _that…_ we keep him contained, and we keep him busy, so he can’t harm anyone on the outside.”

“Okay…” Bailey said quietly as his gaze flicked up momentarily from the tablet screen, to fix the activity in the room beyond for a second time. “And… who’s that with him? The girl in orange.”

The assistant had already been given a crash course on how the SCP Foundation conducted business. If it bothered him all that much… he guessed he wouldn’t have taken the job, and just let them wipe his memory. “D-class?”

“D-22560,” Morrigan replied, turning her attention to the young woman stood on the opposite side of the operating table. Looking at her, the girl seemed fairly relaxed, like she was getting used to her surroundings, and to the being she was assisting. As Morrigan watched, SCP-049 removed one hand from the gaping hole in the cadaver’s chest, and passed something to the girl - a clamp, by the looks of it - and D-22560 passed him whatever tool she’d been holding, Morrigan still couldn’t quite figure out what that one was supposed to do.

“You can always tell someone’s D-class by their tattoo.”

Bailey grinned as he watched the two work. On her arms, what skin the girl’s T-shirt didn’t hide was heavily tattooed - on one side, at least. The other, not so much. “Which one?”

“If we can, we always put it on the left hand - just wait, you’ll see it when 049 moves- see it?”

The young man nodded surely. “Yeah.”

He handed the tablet back to his supervisor.

“You’ll be getting to know _D-22560_ pretty well, too,” Morrigan said as she took it. “For the time being, she’s here to stay.”

“But… doesn’t the Foundation terminate D-class personnel after a month?”

“Normally, yes. There’s exceptions across all our facilities, and she’s one of them. Her blood's pretty crucial to our project, as it turns out… so we’ve been given approval to keep her. In fact… if it wasn’t for D-22, we wouldn’t have a project.”

“What do you mean by that? What’s so special about her?”

Morrigan paused for a moment. There wasn’t any better way to say it. When she next spoke, her voice was low, quiet, nearly a whisper. “049 was supposed to kill her, and do _that_ to the body.”

She indicated the decaying corpse lying on the table, and SCP-049 once again elbow-deep in its ruined ribcage.

“Instead… he raped her.”

Bailey’s head snapped back to the researcher. “ _Excuse me?_ ”

“He raped her,” Morrigan repeated matter-of-factly. “We sent her in there to be terminated… she didn’t die when 049 touched her… and he raped her. No one has a clue why that happened… not even him. Sexual activity isn’t _all that unusual_ for some of our objects - 035 will try and seduce _anyone_ given half the chance… but it’s not like 049 at all. He can be aggressive sometimes… but that was a first.”

As Bailey turned back to the scene inside the containment chamber, he couldn’t quite believe it. They were so… _co-operative_. They seemed like they were getting along. All the same, he felt a pang of dread. No one told him _this_ when he got the job. “I’d never have guessed- you know… to look at them working together like that.”

“It only happened the once. And that’s what makes it so…”

Morrigan trailed off and gazed thoughtfully at the doctor and the D-class through the window.

“He doesn’t have _any_ sexual interest in D-22 beyond that one incident. Or anyone else we’ve given to him for testing. This is the third time we’ve sent that girl in there and gotten nothing from 049, he understands he’s not allowed to euthanise her so he’s happy enough putting her to work like this.”

The woman smiled again, but more warmly this time. “He likes her being there. Says he likes the company. _Her_ company. Really, he’s quite fond of her.”

The two lapsed into silence as they watched. Bailey shifted a little, uncomfortable - shouldn’t he be getting on with something right about now?

“I love sentients,” Morrigan said suddenly. As Bailey looked her way, the fondness was clear in every line of her face. “And this is why. You never can tell what they’re gonna do next. You can work _with_ them, get _their_ version of events.”

She gestured to the white-haired man still sat at the table, his attention divided between whatever he was typing up on his own tablet, and SCP-049. “E██ would disagree,” she added, smirking.

The older man shrugged his shoulders, and turned his head to her, a dark eyebrow raised. “That’s exactly _why_ I don’t like ‘em,” he said with a rough yet confident voice. “Can’t trust ‘em. You don’t get that with non-sentient objects.”

Morrigan chuckled. “J███, this is Doctor E██ Radford… he’s a senior researcher like me, and he’s on the 049 project too.”

Bailey’s nervous hand shot out immediately and Radford, a little taken aback, shook it, swivelling his chair to properly greet the assistant. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, I’m J███ Bailey.”

“Ah, the new RA,” he replied, nodding his head once in a quiet greeting as he let go of the younger man’s hand. “Pleasure’s all mine.”

“If I may ask…” Bailey began. “If you don’t like working with sentient objects…”

“Why am I on the 049 project? You got T██ to thank for that.”

Radford smirked up at his colleague. “She tends to get a little carried away.”

“He’s not lying,” Morrigan interjected, though waved Radford off playfully. “I wanted someone on the project who could give me a different perspective. Does that make sense, J███?”

“Yeah, I get what you mean.”

Morrigan glanced back into the containment chamber. “Think I’ve talked long enough. It’s time we introduced you.”

Bailey’s eyes were wide, and he was frozen in place with dread as he stared Morrigan down. “Wh-what?” he stammered.

“You have nothing to worry about J███, 049’s very co-operative most of the time. If anything, you’ll find him quite charming. Just follow my lead and you’ll be fine.”

“It’s not just that, it’s-”

“D-22?”

“...Yeah.”

“Don’t worry about _her_ , either. She won’t hurt you. She’s _very_ placid.”

She crossed the small, wide room and stopped at the door beyond. “D-class tend to be that way when we get them,” she added as she swiped her keycard. “Prison breaks most of them for us.”

Bailey approached, and followed Morrigan into the containment chamber. That was when the smell hit him - unholy. Decay, gangrene, and an indistinguishable mixture of bodily fluids, accumulated over God knows how long. The assistant visibly reeled, coughing up on his own saliva, though regained his composure quickly, trying to stay professional.

“You’ll get used to it.” Morrigan seemed entirely unfazed by the stench.

Perhaps she was right about that, Bailey thought to himself as he coughed up the last of it. He tried to focus on something other than the smell, and noticed that the radio was being broadcast in the actual containment chamber too, however, it was quieter in here. He focused on that.

“SCP-049?” she called out, and the hooded figure immediately froze in place, listening, his back to the newcomers. “Can I have a moment of your time? There’s someone I want you to meet.”

SCP-049 stood to full height and placed his equipment on the table. When he approached, the doctor’s grey eyes were fixed on Bailey’s, masked head cocked a little in curiosity. D-22560 watched, not making a sound, not moving from her position.

“049, this is Doctor J███ Bailey,” Morrigan said, gesturing to her colleague. “He’s the new research assistant, he’ll be helping out when we run tests with you. This is his first day with the Foundation, so it’s up to all of us to show him the ropes, you got that?”

The doctor nodded once, slowly, at Morrigan, and then bowed his head politely to Bailey. “Welcome, Doctor,” he said, his voice deep yet soothing. "I look forward to our time working together."

_Jesus Christ, he talks and everything._

Bailey was suddenly aware his jaw had dropped again, so shut it quickly and once again offered his hand to shake.

"-J███!"

The researcher lunged just in time, catching her colleague tight by the wrist. When Bailey met her eyes he saw they were wide with shock.

“Read that article again,” she said sternly. “ _Properly_. We don’t touch 049, and he doesn’t touch _us_.”

SCP-049 again nodded once in agreement.

“...Sorry,” Bailey said meekly.

“Just remember, if 049 touches you, it will probably kill you,” Morrigan continued. “D-22 over there, she’s an exception. We’re still trying to figure out what gives her an immunity.”

D-22560 perked up as the conversation turned to her.

“Come over here, D-22.” The older woman beckoned the D-class over, and the girl approached slowly, hesitantly.

“J███, meet D-22560. You can shake _her_ hand if you want.”

That got a chuckle from Bailey, and indeed he did just that. She smiled nervously up at him then quickly avoided his eye.

“Immunity’s uncommon, but not _exceptionally_ rare,” Morrigan continued, her attention fixed on the D-class, who hung back now the introductions had been made, seeming a little awkward under the attention - the way Morrigan talked _about_ her like she wasn’t actually there. “But since we only let 049 handle D-class personnel, we don’t see it too often. D-22560 was the first one we observed surviving 049 since he came to us. Until my team has a better understanding of what causes immunity, we’re not letting anyone other than D-class near him.”

“Right,” Bailey said, as his supervisor spoke his attention shifted between the two captives, who by now had returned to work.

“I’m having everyone on the project tested - just in case,” Morrigan added. She took a light hold of the man’s elbow and steered him back out of the chamber. “Speaking of which, that’s where I’m taking you next. You’re all right with needles?”

Bailey nodded surely, and as they left the observation room, Radford gave a quick wave to the two, and then they were gone.

“So what exactly is the ‘049 project’?” the younger asked as they walked, the twists and turns of their path disorienting him. He had a feeling he’d need some time before he learned to navigate the site.

“Right now we have two objectives. We want to know _just_ what makes some people immune to 049 while others aren’t. Once we know, it might be possible to create some kind of a vaccine for the rest of us. That’s the hope, anyway… Alongside that… we want to know more about this incident with D-22. We want to know if we can repeat the observation. We want to know _why_ he did it. And you’ll be working on both of these. That okay with you?”

They stopped outside a final door, and when Morrigan swiped her keycard they stepped into the foyer of an on-site hospital. Bailey’s smile was wide, he was truly elated. This was actually happening. “I…” he began, not quite sure of the words he would say. “I honestly can’t wait, T██. I can’t wait to get started.”

“That’s what I wanna hear J███,” Morrigan said with a smile. “Now c'mon, follow me, I want your blood.”

The new recruit was led through the hospital, but he barely paid any attention to his surroundings, only concentrating enough to avoid walking straight into the staff members who crossed his path quickly, purposeful. He was walking on air. Eventually they arrived in a small room, quiet, and Bailey was left alone for just a moment before he was joined by a woman he assumed was a nurse - she got started straight away, asked his name and date of birth, rolled up the man’s shirt sleeve and set up her work station.

Bailey didn’t think himself a squeamish person, and he wasn’t afraid of needles. As the needle pierced his dark skin, he found the sharp pain was actually quite welcome - some kind of confirmation that he wasn’t dreaming after all. He watched, calm, as three vials filled up with his own blood. He wouldn’t wake up back in his old apartment, he was sure of that now. He’d wake up in his designated room in one of the on-site dorms, and then he’d get to work in the job he'd so far only dreamed of doing.

It was all true after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which D-22/D-two-two is of course short for D-22560.
> 
> Just wanted to mention real quick that the story won't all be from Bailey's perspective. Most of it is Andrea's story, however, I do need to show some of it from Bailey's eyes since I wanna talk about what the research team is doing, and Andrea is involved far less in that.


	2. Chapter 2

“D-22,” Dr Morrigan’s voice came through the speaker - it made the girl jump a little, she wasn’t expecting it. “It’s time for us to finish. Please prepare to leave the containment chamber.”

The girl looked up at SCP-049, who was so distracted by his work he didn’t seem to have paid any attention. “049, I gotta go,” she said. “Where do you want these?”

She held up the two implements she’d been holding, and SCP-049’s eyes shifted up from the severed leg he was part way through reattaching to the other knee, and jerked his masked head to a spot on the end of the table. “In that corner, please.”

D-22560 did as instructed, then made her way around the table to the other side. Now that she was leaving, she had SCP-049’s full attention, for the moment at least - he set down the resin he’d been using to connect the bones, and saw her off with a polite handshake. His hand was covered with the various fluids of his patient, but the D-class supposed she was used to all of that by now.

“Thank you Andrea,” he said, something warm and friendly in his eyes as he looked down at her. “Might you return soon?”

D-22560 shrugged non-committally. “Probably. Bye, 049.”

With that, she made for the small wash basin in the corner of the chamber and quickly cleaned off her hands and wrists. As she approached the door, waiting for someone on the other side to let her out, she decided she’d take a shower as soon as she got back to her own room. A long shower. The Foundation may have assigned her to work _exclusively_ with SCP-049, but that didn’t mean the work was particularly clean. Not only had she seen _far_ more of the inside of a human body than she _ever_ wanted to, often there were times SCP-049’s hands were full and he made her reach in and grab hold of things for him. Cold, slimy things. Just reminiscing made D-22560 feel queasy, and she found that the sink in his chamber didn’t quite cut it to wipe away that lingering, _disgusting_ feeling of viscera all over her skin. Having been in there with him, doing this - four times now - she found that a long shower tended to help with that. The first time she’d been in there seemed to be a little different though - D-22560 had lost track of how long she sat under the scalding stream, but it didn’t clean her.

When the door slid open, D-22560 stepped out and immediately turned to Morrigan for instructions. Normally, she’d be dismissed, and the guards would take her back to her room.

The researcher couldn’t hide her dejection, her disappointment was clear to everyone in the small room. The D-class knew why - Morrigan wanted SCP-049 to fuck her again, and _that_ wasn’t happening. But since _that_ was only good news for D-22560, she had trouble sympathising.

That wasn’t to say she didn’t understand _why_ the Foundation wanted to see it happen. It was for their own protection - they needed to know how to avoid the same fate befalling their own researchers, and they couldn’t guarantee that without knowing what set him off in the first place.

“I want you to stay a little longer, D-22,” Morrigan said as she finished typing up her notes. “I want an interview.”

She turned to Bailey, who was seated on her left. “J███, how do you fancy this one?”

The assistant perked up noticeably, whole body freezing, his head snapping up from his own work to meet her, wide-eyed.

“What- the interview?”

“Mmhm. I want everything on record. Just a few questions, I’ve e-mailed them to you.”

Morrigan stood, and Bailey quickly followed.

“Thought I might start you off with D-22. You can work up to 049… he can be difficult sometimes. Go on, both of you.”

She offered an encouraging touch to Bailey’s arm as he moved tentatively around her. “You’ll do fine J███. Take her to room 318, off the first corridor in light containment.”

Bailey nodded quickly, and turned his attention to D-22560. “…Ready?” he asked.

D-22560 shrugged, and let him lead her, out of the room and into the corridors beyond. As they made their way through the facility, it was clear to the girl that her interviewer had no real idea where he was going. He walked slow, unsure of his every step. He relied on a map he’d brought up on his tablet to navigate to light containment and from there, he still made a few wrong turns.

When he finally stopped at room 318, it took Bailey a couple of tries to swipe his keycard properly in the door. It eventually opened to a small room, quiet, clean and entirely empty aside from a table in the centre and a couple of chairs on either side of that. D-22560 glanced up - a small camera glared down at her from the corner.

“Please have a seat, D-22,” came Bailey’s voice, soft yet deep, from behind her as he closed the door. Like SCP-049, he had an English accent, but they didn’t sound much alike at all. “And I’ll get everything set up.”

The girl did as she was asked and waited, patient, for Bailey to prepare. It wasn’t long before he took the seat opposite, and D-22560 watched him - presumably setting up his tablet to record their conversation.

Bailey was young - he couldn’t be that much older than she was, D-22560 thought to herself as she watched him. Maybe a few years at most. And she couldn’t help but notice that he was handsome, in a dorky kind of way - dorky from those tiny, rectangular glasses he wore right down to the sweater vest peeking out from under the collar of his brand new white lab coat. She couldn’t deny he was just the kind of guy she’d have gone for on the outside - in another life maybe she’d have had a chance.

She didn’t though. Even if staff fraternising with the D-class was allowed (D-22560 didn’t need to take any guesses there, it wasn’t), he wouldn’t touch her with a stick. He knew what SCP-049 had done to her.

“Right, we’re good to go,” Bailey eventually said, tapping something on the screen of his tablet and pushing it aside, lifting his head to meet D-22560’s eyes. “You’ll have to bear with me, D-22… this is my first formal interview and I’ve never done anything like this in the past.”

The girl flashed a quick smile, timid but still encouraging.

“I should introduce myself formally for the record… I’m Doctor J███ Bailey, an RA on the 049 project. Going over what T██ has e-mailed me I have a list of topics we _definitely_ have to cover, but I’m free to ask about anything I think might be helpful. So… um, we should just… get to it. D-22, could you please tell me, from your own perspective… what happened the first time you encountered SCP-049?”

D-22560 hesitated slightly before beginning - an attempt to gather her thoughts as fully as she could before starting. “Well… I went in there and he was doing his thing. Operating, you know.”

Bailey nodded knowingly, his attention shifting back to his tablet as he made notes.

“He stopped what he was doing and put his hand on my neck… now I know that was meant to kill me so… I guess he was trying to kill me but it didn’t work. He was really surprised with that… really interested. He took off my clothes and started touching me- not like _that_ , but like a _real_ doctor. He grabbed me and pulled me real close and dropped to the floor, and took me with him. And then he…”

The assistant broke eye contact for a moment, uncomfortable, before returning it. He busied himself with more note-taking. “Um… please go on.”

The girl felt a little ill as she got the words out, and when she did her voice wavered noticeably. “…He fucked me. Fucked me for ages and they didn’t do anything. They just let it happen.”

“...I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, I know.” There was a bitter edge to her words, and she looked away, staring fixedly at a spot on the floor. “You don’t have to be.”

D-22560 exhaled a slow, ragged breath. “It was like he was a different pers- …a different SCP. He held me there for ages and then he… dropped me. That’s when they came in and took me away.”

Bailey bowed his head in understanding, eyebrows knitted together in a frown of concentration. “Why do you think it happened?”

Again, D-22560 shrugged with little care. She still wouldn’t look at him. “Don’t know. Doesn’t change anything, right?”

“Maybe not. Pardon me for asking, but… you never look this scared when you’re in there with him, working on the cadaver. Aren’t you afraid he’ll do it again?”

At that, the girl’s brown eyes met his black. “I’m fucking terrified. Wouldn’t you be? But I… I just don’t think he will.”

“What makes you say that?”

D-22560 straightened up. “You know the _first_ thing 049 did when I went back in there? He _apologised_. He said he felt terrible, he said he’d _never_ do it again as long as he was still himself.”

Bailey hummed quietly to himself, a small vocalisation on his exhale, and typed up more notes before continuing. “How would you describe your relationship with 049 now?”

“He doesn’t seem to mind me being there. I guess… it’s like we’re co-workers. You’ve been watching, right? He tells me what to do, I get it done, and we’re good. He can get a little frustrated if I get stuff wrong but otherwise… we’re fine.”

“T██ reckons 049 is quite fond of you,” Bailey added. “Getting back to the incident… can you think of anything you could’ve _possibly_ done that set him off? Anything at all?”

The girl shook her head insistently. “Why are you all making out this is _my fault?_ I just did what I was told! I just stood there! He seemed fine… then… …I can’t help you. I don’t know.”

She looked off thoughtfully for a second and then fixed Bailey’s gaze again. “Do these guys- do you think 049 goes into heat or something? If you ask me… I think that’s what happened. Maybe every hundred years or so… it just happens?”

Bailey didn’t respond right away. Instead his attention dropped back down to his tablet where he made another note. “Who knows,” he said slowly. “So, D-22… this next one isn’t a question but T██ wants to change up the testing a little - it’s clear if we keep sending you in without making _changes_ , we’re not going to get a different result.”

“What do you want to do?”

“T██ wants you to meet with 049 again tomorrow, but she wants you to retrace your every step, same as the day of the incident. _Right down to the blink of the eye_ , it says here. Do everything exactly as you did it - that would mean spending the night in the cell with the other D-class… can you do that?”

The girl shrugged. “Not right down to the blink of an eye, but… yeah, sure.”

*

*

The cell was loud - deafening even - the musty air filled with the hollering of some two dozen D-class women and D-22560 sat alone on her bunk, quiet and still, watching the chaos play out around her, as she waited for the RA to arrive. She jumped as a sudden wave of raucous laughter rang out from the clique seated some four feet away on the next bunk, and resumed staring at the cell door.

 _Crazy how fast you adjust to your own space_ , D-22560 thought to herself. She watched with indifference as a small fight broke out between two women on the other side of the cell. She lived in here quite happily before the Foundation gave her a room of her own, before the “incident”, but now every sound, every movement had her on edge.

Finally the heavy door swung open, and a red-headed woman who D-22560 didn’t recognise stepped in. After closing the door behind her, she scanned the room until setting eyes on the lone D-class staring fixedly at her.

“Good morning, D-22560!” the research assistant said brightly as the D-class dutifully held out her left hand, offering the barcode tattooed on the back. She was scanned.

“Great, let’s get started,” the woman continued. “I’m Doctor Phillips. I’ll be keeping a record of everything you do from here until testing.”

“Okay,” D-22560 replied, shrugging and getting off the bunk and to her feet. “So you wanna know what I’ve done since I woke up?”

Phillips readied her tablet. “Please.”

“Uh… nothing really. Last time I was here I woke up late and missed breakfast. So I didn’t eat anything today. I just had some water.”

D-22560 gestured to the water cooler in the corner of the large cell, and the RA made a note.

“Then I had a shower. I haven’t done that yet.”

“Well… if you could, please.”

The two made their way around the bunk beds, across the cell, and entered the bathroom. D-22560 wasn’t the slightest bit hesitant as she stripped naked in front of the RA - after all, there was no privacy in here, and prison hadn’t been any different. Instead of stepping straight into the shower stall which stretched from one end of the expansive room to the other, she walked across the room to the toilet cubicles and stopped at the sinks. Phillips followed.

“What did you do here?” she asked.

“We were out of soap,” D-22560 explained as she pumped the dispenser above the centre sink. “So I had to use this instead. I didn’t wash my hair, it didn’t need it.”

With one hand piled high with hand soap, D-22560 returned to the wide stall and picked a spot near the door. As she showered and dried off - taking care to pick out the lime green towel - the RA busied herself typing up notes.

D-22560 ran her fingers through the wet ends of her long chestnut hair and brushed her bangs out of her eyes. Even when they weren’t wet her bangs were a nuisance now - they’d grown out over her eyes during her time at the facility and she didn’t bother asking the Foundation for a haircut. She chucked her towel in a laundry bin and put her sweat pants and T-shirt back on.

Phillips lowered her tablet. “What next?” she asked.

D-22560 reached into the pocket of her sweat pants and pulled out a pack of playing cards. She turned it over in her hands. “Went back to my bed and played alone until the guards came.”

Phillips watched the D-class play for one uneventful hour - the two had estimated that’s how long it would’ve been on the day - before ushering her off the bed and out of the cell. Behind the door, three guards waited - the test was ready, and they would escort her. The RA wished her luck before leaving, down the corridor and out of sight.

One of the guards jabbed D-22560 in the back with the end of his firearm and laughed when she jumped back, but otherwise none of them said anything to her. As they led her away, the girl realised she wasn’t afraid this time. Despite everything she’d had to do that morning, she secretly doubted it would change anything.

 _It probably just comes around every hundred years or so_ , she thought to herself. _Not something we can ever recreate._


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song Bailey is listening to in the middle of this scene is _Electroshock_ by 3OH!3.

The experiment was ready - all they needed now was for D-22560 to arrive.

Bailey sat at the desk, headphones on but the volume low enough that he could still hear the world around him. He glanced up, watching SCP-049 through the one-way mirror. The main lights were on in there, but right now there was no corpse on his operating table - in a bout of frustration he’d ordered it destroyed the day before, shortly after D-22560 had left, explaining bitterly that he’d made a ‘fatal error’. He’d said it was useless to him now so they’d had it incinerated, hoping the doctor didn’t have a change of heart and ask for it back later on. He’d done _that_ before.

The plague doctor sat at his table writing in a journal. Every now and then he paused and looked off, tapping the end of his pen rhythmically against the side of his hard beak - apparently lost in thought, but always resumed his earlier pace.

Morrigan and Radford were deep in conversation on Bailey’s left. There was nothing left for them to do until their D-class came. Meanwhile the research assistant familiarised himself with the test logs and transcripts from the incident and subsequent interviews. It was important to get himself up to speed.

The new recruit looked over his shoulder as the door behind opened, and as she approached, he met D-22560’s eye and offered a kind smile. Although all three research personnel were familiar with her by now, she was scanned.

“Please go on in, D-22,” Morrigan said.

Conversation between the two researchers petered out into nothing as Morrigan swiped her keycard and let the girl into the containment chamber. At the sound of his door opening, SCP-049 perked up, looking back. He stood when he caught sight of D-22560 and waited for her to approach.

“Good morning Andrea,” the microphones in the chamber picked up his polite greeting clearly and Bailey could hear it over the music in his ears. Within the bright room, the doctor offered the girl his hand.

“Morning.” She shook it briefly, and as she let go she tilted her head to get a better look at the table behind the doctor. “No patient today?”

“I have been informed a cadaver is en route,” SCP-049 replied. With clear disdain lacing his words he added, “Which can only mean we will be operating on one of the _frozen bodies_ …”

Bailey snickered a little when SCP-049 said that. He’d caught up enough by now to know just how many D-class the Foundation had gone through to find even a few who had an immunity to him after the incident had happened. It had apparently seemed like a waste to dispose of them all, given the plague doctor’s demand for corpses - it was just a shame he preferred the bodies to be live when he got them.

“Oh… sorry,” came D-22560’s calm voice. She began to move around SCP-049 and around the table to get to her spot on the other side. “I’ll get everything set up, you might have to remind me how-”

D-22560 didn’t finish. She cried out in shock as SCP-049 grabbed her roughly by her T-shirt and threw her on the empty operating table. Through the mirror - the window - Bailey saw the girl’s eyes widen in realisation, her features saturated with sheer terror as she looked up at the doctor who was now upon her.

“T██!” the RA called out, straightening up in an instant. “E██! Is this normal?”

“No J███, this is it, this has gotta be it!” Morrigan just couldn’t hide her excitement as she jumped out her seat, leaning over the table, as close to the window as she could get without climbing on it. Bailey didn’t say anything, instead he joined his coworkers in watching the unfolding scene.

D-22560 scrambled back, trying on instinct to get away but there was nowhere to go. At her fruitless attempt to flee SCP-049 grabbed her by the hip and dragged her roughly towards him. The girl whimpered - whether from pain or fear it was impossible to tell - as the doctor forced her thighs open wider and settled between them. He ground his hips hard into hers as he bent over her.

“No…” D-22560’s plea was heartbreaking to hear. “Please, no… 049…”

Ignoring her entirely, SCP-049 braced himself with one hand planted on the table somewhere near her head, and the other came up to her cheek, gloved fingertips grazing across her flesh and spreading the wet trails her tears had made, fingers weaving through thick hair. He was so close he must've been able to feel her shallow, panicked breaths pass over him.

The microphones clearly picked up his snarl, aggressive, heavy with lust. The doctor straightened up a little as his touch descended, down both sides of her neck, over her clavicles, her heaving chest, and came to rest on her ample breasts. The way he squeezed them looked almost loving.

His hands trailed down, along her stomach and slipped under her T-shirt, and he resumed groping underneath her clothing. The D-class grabbed at his arms in a futile attempt to push him off - she was met with another snarl, ferocious, and the monster brushed her off with ease. With the other hand he yanked both her sweat pants and her panties down, he backed up just enough to pull them off entirely.

D-22560 stiffened, bracing herself for what was to come as SCP-049 ground into her body again. Her gaze flicked down and after that, it seemed she couldn’t look away. As the doctor positioned himself and forced his way inside, she stiffened ever further, eyes screwed shut, and cried out in agony.

Gripping her hips tight, SCP-049 worked his way in deeper, his movements rough and urgent until he was as deep as he could get, grinding back and forth without really moving. As he savoured the moment, heavy sobs burst from the girl beneath him.

It was a near impossible task for Bailey to keep watching as the doctor began to rut into her like a man starved, every jerk of his hips rough and animalistic, yet the RA was unable to look away. He wasn’t exactly a blushing virgin himself, yet he was still unable to shake the feeling he was watching something he really shouldn’t be.

The aggressive chorus of an aggressive song came around a second time through the RA’s headphones and he quickly pulled them off, casting them aside. _That_ didn’t help. He felt uncomfortable enough already.

D-22560’s sobs rang out over the speakers as Bailey glanced nervously at the researchers to his left. Morrigan was still glued to the scene, her jaw hung in sheer scientific fascination. She made hurried notes on her tablet, so rushed they were nearly illegible. On her left, Radford stared with a discomfort that looked to rival Bailey’s - his eyes so wide they threatened to pop right out of his head. As the older man shifted awkwardly, Bailey felt glad he wasn’t the _only_ one who wished he wasn’t actually seeing what was happening.

SCP-049’s pace quickened, he pounded urgently into the D-class who by now had given up struggling entirely and simply lay there, the tears streaming down her face the only power she had over herself in that moment. She grit her teeth.

“You know what this is, right?” Morrigan squealed, her head snapping from Radford to Bailey. “You read the e-mail.”

She tore her gaze away from SCP-049’s continuing onslaught on the girl for just enough time to bring up the message.

“It’s that hand soap all over her, it’s gotta be!”

“T██… don’t jump to conclusions now,” Radford interjected, glancing away from the window and over to her for just a moment. “We’ve been using that stuff for years, we _all_ have.”

“We’ll test it! It makes sense, doesn’t it? He’s known to be affected by other scents, it’s _gotta_ be that!”

By now the doctor had grown wild. He gripped the girl's hips hard enough to bruise and pulled her back viciously with each erratic thrust, release his sole motivation. The small noises he made weren't quite so small now - the researchers could hear the quick, deep moans over the speakers.

With her eyes still shut tight, D-22560 continued to weep, quiet and hopeless. Her fingernails dug so hard into the flesh of her stomach and thigh she’d drawn blood. A chill spread through Bailey’s own body when he noticed that - he couldn’t imagine how much pain she must be in.

 _You knew they used_ people _when you took the job, J_ ███, he thought to himself. Somehow that was a calming thought, yet it didn’t make him feel any less ill as he watched the assault. He had to watch - it was his job, after all.

D-22560 continued to thrash against SCP-049’s tight grip, and Bailey’s heart sank when he finally realised she wasn’t doing that because she was in pain - she was _coming_. Whether she wanted to or not. Not a moment later this was confirmed - her wanton howl so loud, so unhindered they didn’t even need the microphones in that chamber to hear it, and the doctor only fucked her more urgently in response, chasing his own climax, her wail only spurring him on more.

He didn’t need much longer before he followed, head thrown back, his guttural sigh not quite so loud. His hips jerked - twice, three, four, five times before he slumped over the D-class, bracing his arms on either side of her, buried inside her as deep as he could go. His chest and shoulders rose and fell as he took heavy breaths, but otherwise the containment chamber was silent.

All three on the outside waited with bated breath, just as quiet, yet Bailey’s heart hammered in his chest, the others _must_ be able to hear it. He felt like he was going to puke.

 _I’m in_ way _over my head…_

The doctor and the D-class were still. Still inside of her, unmoving, he stared into her eyes like she was the most fascinating thing in the whole world and the betrayal was written all over her tear-stained face as she stared back.

SCP-049 brushed her bangs out of her wide, wide eyes as he leaned in closer. “Andrea…” he whispered. It was quiet, yet the microphones were good, they had no trouble picking it up. “…What is it you do to me?”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I split up the content of this chapter and the next. It's shorter, but I wanted to get SOMETHING out because it's been some time.

Morrigan thought to herself, as she watched the doctor through the window, that he looked rather peaceful. Still with no cadaver to work on, that evening he sat on his bed, writing up. It would be a shame to disturb him - if everything went to plan they certainly would - yet she reminded herself it was for the good of the Foundation.

SCP-049 set his journal down, stood, and began to pace along the length of the dimly-lit chamber. Morrigan readied the receiver against her head.

“Go on J███,” she spoke into it. “We’re ready. Feed it in.”

A vapourised form of the hand soap used in every dispenser at the facility wasn’t at all difficult to form, and it was even simpler to release it into the air vent in that chamber. It wasn’t exactly a _pleasant_ smell yet the two researchers didn’t mind experiencing it from their observation room.

However, they saw the effects long before that. SCP-049 reacted immediately - he froze in place, utterly unmoving for several seconds, before dropping to his knees like his legs were suddenly too weak to support him. Morrigan’s eyes widened and her jaw hung as she watched the doctor reach beneath his coat with a trembling hand.

“Are you _seeing_ this?” the researcher said excitedly, her head snapping to her left, her wide eyes pinning Radford intently for a split second before returning to the anomaly through the window, now jerking himself urgently and drawing quick yet heavy breaths, chest rising and falling. She leaned over the table and braced her arms, as close to the window as she could get. “He’s _masturbating!_ ”

A pause, the doctor’s ragged breaths coming in faintly through the speakers were the only sound. “Looks like we found what makes him tick…” the woman continued. “A powerful, _powerful_ aphrodisiac by the looks of it…”

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Radford said, offering a shrug of his shoulders as he watched SCP-049, his discomfort visible. “Looks like you were right T██… D’you reckon D-22 set 'em off ‘cause she can get close to 'em? Or ‘cause she was covered in the stuff?”

Morrigan didn’t respond. Her attention was fixed on SCP-049 who had set a vigorous pace, eyes shut tight. She couldn’t figure out whether he was enjoying himself or not.

“Could’ve been both,” he decided to himself.

Breaking away from his notes, Radford’s cold blue eyes shifted to his co-worker and he raised a questioning eyebrow. “You’re… watching?”

She didn’t look away for a single moment. “Of course I am. Why wouldn’t I?”

“You don’t think it’s _at all_ inappropriate? Borders on voyeurism if you ask me.”

That provoked the slightest twitch at the corners of the woman’s mouth. “Don’t worry, 049 and I are just friends,” she teased. “Besides, you didn’t seem all that concerned _last time_.”

Radford rolled his eyes at her. Unwilling to devote all his attention to the experiment playing out, he busied himself typing up the observation.

The small grin faded as Morrigan finally tore her gaze away from SCP-049 to make notes of her own.

“ _One_ of us has to watch, at least - it’s for the sake of the project,” she continued, much more seriously. Her hazel eyes flicked back up to the doctor now hammering his dick wildly, whether he was having fun or not it was clear he wouldn’t need much more time.

When Morrigan next spoke it was little more than a distracted murmur, for her own ears more than anything. “I just wish we could get a better look at his anatomy… I can’t see a thing, his hide is _always_ in the way.”

Radford snorted derisively. “Maybe your _special D-class_ can help with that.”

“Mmhm… good idea,” Morrigan said absently, not even looking at him. “I didn’t see him undress at all - did you? Looked like he just… got on with it, didn’t it?”

“049 _can’t_ undress. That’s not clothing.”

“I know, I know… doesn’t that make it more interesting? We need to look into it. There’s _so much_ we can learn from this.”

With a sharp and ragged breath SCP-049 came, shuddering a little and spilling onto his coat and hand. Morrigan still couldn’t see much from where she was but that she noticed, and she saw him let go of his cock quickly after he finished. The doctor didn’t do anything for a short while, still knelt where he had fallen, staring down at his release.

The microphones picked up the fear in his words clearly as he put to himself a question.

“…What is happening to me?”

As many years as she’d been with the Foundation, working with sentients just like him, it clearly hadn’t been enough time to distance herself completely - Morrigan’s heart sank a little. Way back when, as a new recruit she’d wondered whether researchers _ever_ managed to completely forego their empathy. A few years in she’d decided there was no way _she_ could. Two decades in, she was certain of that.

She watched SCP-049 get to his feet. He took a wad of gauze from his operating table, ran it under the tap and began to clean up. “I have to tell him,” Morrigan said, casting a sombre glance at her co-worker, whose small shrug told her the decision was hers to make. “It’s only fair - he has a right to know what’s going on.”

Now clean, SCP-049 knelt down to his satchel in the corner of the chamber, and retrieved a new journal. He didn’t return to his bed, he sat at his desk and wrote hurriedly. Morrigan had a suspicion he wasn’t making research notes.

“This changes everything,” she said, still watching him. “First thing’s first - we _have_ to revise handling protocol for 049. We can agree on _that_ , right E██?”

“Naturally. Gotta think about our _own_ safety before anything else.”

“There’s gotta be some active ingredient in that soap he’s responding to. We can find it - experiment with different brands, different formulas. It’s gotta be _something_.”

“Mmhm.”

“Don’t suppose it’d be cost-effective to _isolate_ an active ingredient, but I wanna know either way. For now… a whole day, d’you think that’s enough time? All personnel wait twenty-four hours _after_ using that stuff before _any_ contact with 049. Just in case.”

“Seems appropriate. …He doesn’t respond to alcohol rub, does he?”

“You know E██, I don’t know if he does.”

Morrigan swivelled her chair to face Radford. His arms were folded and his face was unreadable, and there was a lengthy silence between them.

“What are you thinking?” Radford finally asked.

“Were you being serious before?” the woman asked. “When you said we should use D-22 to help with this side of our project?”

“It makes sense T██, she’s the only one that can get close to ‘em.”

“Can’t argue with that… guess she’s kind of crucial, if I wanna know what I wanna know.” Morrigan glanced back through the window at the doctor. “049’s not gonna be happy with that.”

Radford grinned. “Suppose he’ll come around…”

“How so?”

“Suppose he’s _rewarded_ with a few more _fresh_ cadavers for his trouble instead of the freezer stock.”

“You’re suggesting we bribe him.”

“Exactly. Either way… he does what we tell ‘em, T██. Whether he likes it or not.”

Sometimes Morrigan wished she could detach herself the way Radford could - in fact, it was one of the reasons she’d wanted him leading the project with her in the first place. “I wanna talk to him first,” she said. “I want an interview. Not now, tomorrow. We’ll arrange transport first thing.”


	5. Chapter 5

Transporting SCP-049 had always been a fascinating experience. Stressful, of course - putting the care of a dangerous and _sentient_ anomaly quite literally in the hands of the D-class personnel there to restrain him, knowing he might do something _unpredictable_ at any moment, there was so much that could go wrong. So far he hadn’t breached containment, yet there had been a few near misses. With all this in mind, stressful was certainly an appropriate word.

But it was also fascinating from the perspective of anyone keen to learn about the inner workings of the doctor’s mind - the things he said while high on sedatives were often bizarre, sometimes downright disturbing, yet at times some of the most lucid interactions any of the researchers had ever had with him. It was just a shame that since he was high as a kite in these moments, the researchers couldn’t use his words as _official_ findings in their interviews.

Either way, Dr Morrigan had taken to escorting the transport team, and SCP-049, to the interview room so she could listen in. He interested her far more than she could ever have anticipated - both as the subject of her research, and as an individual.

*

Morrigan swiped her keycard in the door, crossed the barren room and took her seat opposite the heavily-restrained doctor. SCP-049 still looked somewhat tired as he lifted his grey eyes to meet her gaze, Morrigan guessed he might need a little more time before he was ready to talk - drugs tended to pass through anomalies like him far quicker than for human beings, but the sedative might not have cleared his system completely just yet.

“Good morning, Doctor Morrigan,” he started the exchange today and wasted no time. “Might I offer my most sincere apologies for what you have seen of me this past week. Lately I have been experiencing… urges. Intense urges. I cannot control them. I fear… neither of us have seen the end of it.”

There was a doleful look in his eyes as he said it.

Morrigan crossed one leg over the other and leaned back a little in her seat. “You’re afraid of having urges?”

“It is not like me to have such needs. Never before have I _needed_ sex.”

“But you have it?” Morrigan pressed. “You have, in the past?”

SCP-049 nodded slowly. “Of course. It is enjoyable, when on my own terms.”

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about today, SCP-049. You might be relieved to know we’ve come upon a reason you’ve been feeling this way.”

The doctor cocked his head a little to the side, not taking his eyes from hers.

“We believe our friend D-22560 accidentally tracked a compound on her skin, something in the kind of soap she’d used to wash herself. It seems to be a powerful aphrodisiac to you - when you’re exposed to it. Right now we believe _that’s_ why you’ve been having those urges.

He didn’t respond right away, instead continued to stare tiredly, fixedly, at Morrigan.

“I see,” he eventually said.

“And what happened last night was our doing - myself and Doctor Radford. We needed to carry out a couple of tests before we could say anything with confidence.”

SCP-049’s expressive eyes narrowed. “You… introduced the compound into my laboratory?”

“Exactly. We’re sorry for the trouble we caused you, but surely you can appreciate why we had to do it?”

A pause. “How is Andrea?”

Morrigan expected him to ask this. “Her vitals are normal,” she replied. “So we’d say she’s okay, if a little shaken.”

SCP-049’s eyes seemed to bore right into Morrigan’s despite still being a little unfocused, she felt like he was staring into her very soul, and the remorse was heavy in his voice. “I have betrayed her trust. I promised it would _never_ happen again.”

“While you were still yourself, which you weren’t,” the woman reminded him. “None of this is your fault. Now… we need to talk about what happens from here on out. We’re going to be conducting further experiments with this compound, and your co-operation would be _much_ appreciated.”

The doctor gave a heavy sigh, exasperated, like _he_ had been expecting _this_. With the movement of his body the chains surrounding him clinked together audibly. When he lifted his head up again, it was clear from the look in his eyes he was more than a little bothered by the news. “Doctor, I _do not have time for these tests_. You are aware of this. I have my own research to conduct, and with all due respect… my work is for a higher purpose than your own.”

“Our tests won’t take up much time.”

“Every second you delay my research is another second you allow the Pestilence to ravage the population. Each life I could be saving… they are on you, Doctor Morrigan, yet they linger still on my _own_ conscience.”

“You’ll be compensated for your time,” Morrigan continued, unfazed. “No more frozen bodies.”

The way the plague doctor perked up visibly at those words, the way his eyes seemed to properly focus on her for the first time in that session, it told Morrigan all she could need to know - she had him.

“Don’t worry about the surplus, they won’t go to waste,” she continued. “There’s enough hungry objects on-site to get through them in a week. Gladly. Comply with our testing and we’ll provide you only with _live_ patients.”

SCP-049 deliberated. “It seems an adequate reparation,” he decided. He couldn’t hide the way his eyes smiled.

Morrigan couldn’t help returning his smile with a grin of her own. “Thank you,” she said. “Your co-operation is going to make this an awful lot easier.”

“I have a request of my own,” the doctor said, his gaze serious. “If I may?”

Slightly taken-aback, Morrigan nodded her head, urging him to continue.

“I wish to minimise collateral damage while under the influence of this… aphrodisiac.”

“What do you mean?”

“I wish to be tested only with Andrea. No one else.”

Morrigan’s eyebrows had almost reached her hairline. She hadn’t expected _this_. “That works for us. Can I ask why?”

“I have known Andrea twice already. No more of your personnel need suffer the same fate as her. I am fully aware this is a burden that might be shared between her peers, however… as regrettable as the circumstances are, she now knows what to expect.”

He hesitated before continuing. “Not to mention I value her greatly as a colleague.”

“Mmhm. I can’t deny the two of you work well together. It will be done.”

“...May I see her?”

Morrigan jerked her head up from her notes. “D-22560?”

“Yes. I wish to explain - if what happened was beyond my control, she must know.”

“She will. In time. You’ll see her in testing.”

And with that, the interview was terminated. Morrigan bid him a quick thanks, and farewell, and she stood to leave. The look on the doctor’s avian face was unreadable as he watched her leave.

The researcher headed for her office. It was almost with a sense of amusement she pondered over how that session had gone - D-22560 would not be happy when they gave her the news. Not that it mattered how she felt, she was there to follow Morrigan’s orders, of course… and they needed her. Radford was right - she was immune, she could interact with the doctor in ways none of their team could. Morrigan would go so far as to say D-22560 _was_ part of the team.

And she was co-operative, more so than was expected from the average D-class. Morrigan still couldn’t figure out whether it was _prison_ that had broken her, or whether the girl had done that herself - they all knew why she was here. Despite _that_ , none of the team thought she was actually a bad person. She was actually pleasant to be around (no wonder 049 wants to keep working with her, Morrigan thought), and not to mention she was pretty easy on the eye. She wondered whether SCP-049 appreciated that. Did he find human beings attractive in that _conventional_ way?

The researcher smirked to herself as she navigated the facility, entering an elevator and pressing the button to take her up to the fifth floor. D-22560 was pretty, and God knows who else SCP-049 might’ve been tested with. No wonder he wanted to keep fucking _her_ , even if he couldn't control himself.

When the elevator doors opened, Morrigan stepped out, crossing the corridor. Taking everything into consideration, there was no project without that girl. Radford was right - she _was_ their special D-class.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So again I'm just completely overwhelmed by the responses people have given to this story. I can't believe you guys are liking it _this_ much. Like seriously I wanna cry happy tears when I see some of the things that have been said.
> 
> So I did a little sinful thing for you guys as like a small thanks for being so nice:
> 
>  
> 
> [(Click right here for 049 fan art)](http://d.facdn.net/art/dunmerlover/1560722920/1560722920.dunmerlover_urges.png)
> 
>  
> 
> That's kinda based on the content of the last chapter I put out actually, couldn't really resist trying to draw it. I'm not the best painter tbh ~~Andrea's the artist, OKAY~~
> 
> And while I'm posting links I thought you guys might wanna see some of the more wholesome fan art I've done of 049, like in case you did. In order, a cross stitch, and a plushie:
> 
>  
> 
> [(Cross stitch)](http://d.facdn.net/art/dunmerlover/1555871543/1555871543.dunmerlover_20190421_191539.jpg)
> 
>  
> 
> [(Plushie)](http://d.facdn.net/art/dunmerlover/1558289302/1558289302.dunmerlover_20190519_183932.jpg)
> 
>  
> 
> Now I'm done with that, I need to just like warn you guys that this next bit is where it starts to get kinda weird. I mean if it already hasn't been really fucking weird but even _I_ think this is really fucking weird tbh but anyway here it is.

D-22560 cowered as the nurse closed in on her like a shark circling its prey. She cowered because she couldn’t fight this - that needle, as thick as one of her own fingers it seemed, would find its way into her skin one way or another, and all she could do was delay the inevitable.

Despite her cringing away, the nurse positioned a latex-gloved hand on her shoulder to steady her, brushed aside her long hair and wiped something on her skin, cold and wet, and that was the last D-22560 saw of the gigantic needle before it embedded in the back of her neck. The girl howled, more in shock than pain - she _hated_ needles. Some twenty hours of tattoo work behind her and she _still_ hated needles.

Just as she thought the ordeal was coming to an end she felt something pop in under her skin and her cry of horror was renewed. She _felt_ that! As soon as the needle was out of her neck she raised her fingers to it, feeling for what was now under there. Not a moment after she did, the nurse swatted her hand away. She taped something soft to the spot the needle had been, and then she was gone.

D-22560’s heart raced, her limbs felt empty as she poked and prodded at the hard, rectangular lump straining at her skin. She felt like she’d been tagged, like an animal, yet… as laughable as that might’ve sounded some four months ago, back when she was still in prison… now she wouldn’t be quite so surprised.

She returned her attention to the research assistant sat across the table. Bailey had stayed silent the whole time, and now only looked at the girl with what seemed to be a pitying expression.

D-22560 didn’t know where to start, so for a moment her mouth only hung open, words failing her. “…What… what _IS_ this?” she cried.

“That’s a tracking chip,” Bailey replied simply. “Among other things.”

“Why did you put this _IN ME?_ ” the girl shrieked. She raised her left hand and gestured violently with her right to the barcode tattooed on the back. “Isn’t _THIS_ enough?”

“The barcode gives us access to information already stored about our D-class personnel, that’s why we use them to confirm your identity before a test. That tracker, it’s a little different. Now it’s there we can locate you at all times, so… you won’t have to have the guards escort you any more.”

D-22560 stared. “…I’m free to walk about? _Anywhere?_ ”

“Not _anywhere_ …” Bailey replied, reaching down and pulling a plastic slip from his satchel. From this he took a keycard and handed it to the girl. “This is yours, it’s a keycard of your own. This gives you access to the cafeteria, pretty much anywhere else you might need to be. When we test you’ll still need to be let in the containment area, you don’t have access to places like that.”

“So… what’s stopping me from _leaving_ the facility, if not the guards?”

“If the guards don’t notice you trying to get out… that tracker registers any movement beyond the boundaries of the site. If _that_ happens… a mechanism is triggered that would inhibit signalling pathways to and from the medulla - pretty much scrambling it entirely… rendering your brain incapable of performing many of the tasks necessary for life.”

The D-class didn’t even bother trying to follow that. “Can I have that in English please?”

“If you go beyond the walls of the facility, the thing in your neck will fry your brain,” Bailey said. “And you’ll die. If that’s enough motivation to not try and make an escape.”

“Yeah… kinda,” D-22560 replied. Again her fingers came up to the device under her skin. It felt enormous under her touch. What surprised her more than anything was how she didn’t feel at all violated by any of this. But, she guessed a chip under her skin could never violate her as much as a monster’s cock. _That_ would probably be her standard from here on out. “Why though? Why do I need it?”

“T██ and E██ feel it’s a waste of resources to have our guards escort you, now they’ve been given approval to keep you long-term.”

“...Keep me long-term?” D-22560 asked, her words hesitant. Already, her heart sank. This couldn’t possibly be good.

“Yeah, it’s not _unheard of_ , keeping a D-class for this long, but it doesn’t happen often. Only if there’s a good reason to keep them around.”

Her heart sank even more, it was impossible for the girl not to slump over the table, face in her hands, defeated. “So there’s a good reason? And I’m guessing it has something to do with the last… the last experiment?”

She could feel herself blushing uncontrollably. It wasn’t good. He’d been there, he’d seen everything. And _now_ she guessed she had to _talk about it_.

She’d quite rather her brain was fried.

“Well… yes,” Bailey said, sliding his tablet closer and pulling up a document. “The most unlikely set of circumstances coming together at once, were actually responsible… D-22560, what happened wasn’t your fault. You mentioned washing with hand soap that morning because the regular dispenser was empty?”

“Yuh-huh…” Coming through the hands pressed against her face it was muffled.

“Something in that soap - we’re looking into exactly what - is something like… a _very_ strong aphrodisiac to SCP-049. When interviewed by Doctor Morrigan, he- …it claimed to have urges it couldn’t control. That’s why it happened.”

So it _was_ her fault. She’d just wanted to feel clean and… _good_ before she died. If she couldn’t have anything else, it was all she’d wanted. Now it had led to all of this. But that also meant…

“So he didn’t do it on purpose?” D-22560 asked tentatively. “It wasn’t his fault?”

Bailey shook his head. “No… on the contrary SCP-049 expressed a great deal of regret over both incidents. It wanted to apologise, make amends before we get on with further testing.”

“Further testing?”

“Um… yes, there will be further testing.”

 _Of course_.

“Oh.”

It didn’t surprise her. By no means was it news she wasn’t _fully expecting_. All the same, D-22560 felt like she would cry. Her lip contorted, throat suddenly too tight for words. But she wouldn’t cry - not in front of Bailey. She wouldn’t make herself look any weaker than she already had.

The RA was noticeably uncomfortable as he bent down again and pulled out another slip from his bag. “So, um… with that in mind, I have a couple of questions about the last incident.”

He took out the contents of the slip - a couple of printed pages, a transcript by the looks of it - and set them on the table. The transcript was littered with red notes, and he skimmed through for a moment before returning his attention to the girl.

“Doctor Morrigan is particularly interested in SCP-049’s anatomy. It’s hard for us to see from our station and you had a better view than anyone else…”

The girl finally straightened up. “So you wanna know…”

“Yes.” A blush crawled up Bailey’s neck, his dark skin flushing brilliantly. He pretended to busy himself with his prompts so he had something else to look at. “Please describe its… um, penis.”

D-22560 blushed equally in return, but when she looked off past the assistant’s shoulder it was in thought, not discomfort. She didn’t really know where to begin.

“Grey,” she said somewhat vaguely.

Already Bailey made a note, and when he was done, his eyes flicked back up to her, expectantly.

“Kind of like you’d expect,” the girl continued. “I mean, like if he was human. Same sort of shape, less… less _to it_. When I had my eyes closed it was easy to forget he wasn’t. Human, I mean. I could pretend he was and that kinda got me through it. If we’re- …we’re talking… _endowment_ … it was pretty big. Like, for human standards.”

She felt sick, but carried on. Her eyes met Bailey’s. “I know he’s not wearing pants, I _know_ it’s his skin but… it’s like his pants are a sheath.”

The RA’s eyebrows raised dramatically at that. “He- it has a sheath?” he repeated.

“Yeah, like an animal, you know what I mean? One minute he’s fine and his dick isn’t there… next thing I know, he has me on the table and I look down and he’s moved his coat and there it is. Came out where if you had a zipper…”

Bailey nodded in understanding. “And… testes?”

D-22560 shook her head. “Couldn’t see any. But… he must _have_ them in there, right? I mean, he comes and everything so he must…”

“It’s likely you’re right. Is there anything else that um… stood out?”

Again she looked off, slumping over the table again, head resting on her hand as she thought. “His dick is always wet,” she eventually said. “Like, slimy wet. Like someone covered all of it with lube. Not much… but some. Came out like that.”

“Interesting,” Bailey said quietly, as if meant only for himself. The way he stared so intently at the girl, however, and the look in his wide eyes, told her that was an understatement. “This interview will be passed on to Doctor Morrigan in the next day or two but I can see her having more questions about this. In the event she does… d’you think you’d be able to get a sample of that fluid?”

D-22560 leaned back, she shook her head gently. “No. He’s way too strong, I can’t make him do anything when he’s like that.”

“We’ll help you, naturally.”

The girl shrugged. “In _that_ case… it might work.”

Bailey typed quickly, and for a long while nothing was said.

“Can I see him?” D-22560 asked. It had taken her a while to work up the courage to ask.

The RA looked up, that same pitying look on his face as he responded. “No. …Sorry.”

*

*

D-22560 entered the dim observation room, and since Radford was in possession of the scanner this time, she made a beeline for him, and dutifully held her left hand up. She was scanned.

“Good,” Radford said simply. As he looked down at the girl, his face was unreadable, and she was nervous.

As he walked her over to the chamber door they passed by Morrigan, who stayed seated. Radford handed the girl a specimen bottle. “When you’re in there do what you need to do to get ‘em going.” He spoke softly. “We’ll do what we can to help. Open _this_ … get the sample. When you’re done, put it to the side so your colleagues can get it safely when they leave.”

“Okay…” D-22560 stared down at the clear tube in her hand. “What if I mess it all up?”

“Don’t worry. If something goes wrong we can try again later.”

When he said that the tight lump grew in D-22560’s throat again.

Radford placed a strong hand on her shoulder - not encouraging, he was urging her towards the door. “Now go on, we’re ready to start.”

As the door was opened for her, she did as she was told and entered the containment chamber. All the lights were on inside, and since there was no cadaver, the chamber didn’t smell bad.

She saw him immediately - SCP-049 sat on a chair in the middle of the room, facing the mirror. His hands were chained behind his back, and he wore a metal collar on his neck. It looked heavy. On the collar, two long, thick chains were attached, and holding onto the other end of each of these were two of the biggest men D-22560 had seen in her whole life. Their orange jumpsuits gave away their role in this experiment, yet the girl still found herself glancing down at their hands for the telltale barcodes.

Despite being so thoroughly restrained, the doctor was calm. When Morrigan’s order came through the speakers for the D-class men to get him standing, SCP-049 was entirely compliant, and no physical force was needed from anyone to get him on his feet. D-22560 approached but kept her distance, for now - as instructed she’d washed from head to toe with that hand soap only minutes before this.

“Andrea…” As he looked down at her, SCP-049 moved a little within his restraints as though he’d forgotten they were there. “Please, allow me to explain myself-”

“It’s okay 049,” D-22560 cut him off. She shrugged a little. “I know why you did it. They already told me everything.”

The doctor seemed to calm down a little, still fixing her with that intense stare. “Is there any way I might be forgiven?”

“Already done.” She held up the plastic bottle in her left hand, hot and damp from the sweat on her palm. “I need to get a fluid sample from you,” she continued. She met his eyes. “It won’t hurt, but I’m gonna need some time and I need you to work _with_ me on this. Okay?”

“Andrea, I do not want to hurt you.”

She didn’t respond to that. Deciding there was no right way to get the job done, she stepped forward and raised a bare, tattooed arm to SCP-049’s beak. Did he smell it? Was that how it worked? She had no idea.

“Sorry,” she said quietly. “I’m just doing what they asked.”

The doctor reacted immediately. He struggled against his bonds, chest thrown out, trying in vain to get his hands free. He couldn’t - he was impossibly strong but whatever those chains were made of, he couldn’t break them. The D-class on either side of him gripped their handles tight as he thrashed against them.

D-22560 knew what she had to do. She knelt down and unscrewed the cap on the plastic tube just enough that it was loose. She pushed aside the doctor’s coat - like leather, she thought to herself, thick and a little rough to the touch - exposing his cock, already out of its sheath and stood to attention, and for a moment she could only stare. She was right - again it was wet all over.

“D-22560, please move aside,” came Morrigan’s voice through the speakers, making the girl jump a little. “We want to see what we’re dealing with.”

She did as instructed, and shuffled a little to the right, enough that the researchers behind that window could see. She kept hold of SCP-049’s coat, and as she glanced up at his face she saw his eyes were shut. He still struggled in vain. It was the first time D-22560 considered _she_ might be the more dignified one in these tests. She hadn’t come to the Foundation with all that much dignity left yet she knew he had.

No matter how much she was dreading what was to come, she felt sorry for him.

Despite that she unscrewed the bottle, readied her swab and leaned in. All she could do now was get it over with quickly. It wasn’t easy though - SCP-049 jerked and thrashed this way and that, whether he thought he could free himself or he just _hoped_ \- or whether all rational thought had forsaken him (she guessed it was the very latter), he didn’t give up trying to get at her. It was nearly impossible for D-22560 to take a swab.

One of the D-class handling the chains - the bald one - chuckled out loud. “Try sucking his dick, he might stay still if you do that!” he teased.

D-22560 paused for a moment. She couldn’t do that, no… it would contaminate the sample, and she _didn’t_ want to have to do this again. Instead she let go of the doctor’s coat and wrapped her hand gently around the base of his thick, wet shaft.

Like a spell had been cast on him, SCP-049 froze. Now was her chance. She leaned in again, his coat brushing slightly rough against her arm and face as she did, and scraped off as much of the thick fluid as she could in one go, trying to ignore the way the doctor bucked desperately into her hand.

“It’s okay 049, you’re doing great,” she said, her voice as soothing as she could make it. She let go of his throbbing cock, whatever that stuff was that coated her palm, she noted it was a little sticky. She wiped her hand on her sweat pants. “…We’re nearly there.”

The girl screwed the lid shut on the specimen bottle and rolled it towards the door - it hit the wall and settled somewhere near the corner of the chamber.

“Nice work everyone,” came Morrigan’s voice a third time. "D-85911, please free SCP-049’s hands. And collect the specimen bottle on your way out. D-28400 _and_ D-85911… let him have her.”

The other D-class - one of the hairiest men D-22560 had ever seen - approached the plague doctor from behind and pressed something on his restraints. They fell away, and both the men backed up to the wall as they let go of him. Immediately SCP-049 dropped down and lunged for D-22560 - she yelped in pain as he pinned her down on the hard floor, on her stomach. He ripped off her sweat pants, pulled her ass up roughly and mounted her from behind, pushing urgently inside her tight passage. The girl whimpered in pain, but this time she didn’t try and fight him.

He pounded urgently into her like he was making up for lost time, and the girl tuned into the small, satisfied moans that came from the doctor. Anything to drown out the pain. The eyes burning into the back of her neck as she lay there. She scrabbled at the empty floor with the tips of her fingers, trying to find _anything_ to hold on to.

The two men roared with laughter as they watched the assault go on.

“Worth it in the end, huh buddy?” one of them teased SCP-049. The doctor - utterly lost inside of his girl - ignored him.

“Show’s over,” Morrigan spoke again through the intercom, her voice stern. “Please leave the containment chamber, _both of you_.”

As they approached the door the two men didn’t stop laughing - D-22560 swore as she stole a glance up that one of them was almost crying as he bent down to pick up the sample.

“Seriously though,” the other said, looking at the mirror - the window - as he caught his breath. “…Can I get a link to the camera feed?”

The door opened.

“Get out,” Morrigan said sharply, not over the intercom this time, she was loud enough for D-22560 to hear from inside the chamber. “NOW.”

The men looked back over their shoulders for far longer than they had to as they left, still snickering to each other. The door shut behind them, and D-22560 was left to her fate. The doctor fucked her roughly, panting heavily somewhere behind the girl, his pace faster than ever, and she was certain he gripped her hips so tight he would soon break her bones. That hurt the most, she thought to herself as she stifled wanton moans of her own - he was inhumanly strong, and something that strong had no place fucking humans. His cock didn’t hurt so much any more… after a while it felt… _good_ , and there was no way she could keep lying to herself about that.

He didn’t last as long this time - or that’s how it seemed from D-22560’s perspective. That telltale sigh, sharp and heavy, and his hips jerked sporadically a few times, and it was all over.

_At least_ I _didn’t come this time…_

As everything wound down, D-22560 finally burst into tears. SCP-049 showed no signs of pulling out any time soon as he knelt, but at least his touch on her bare hips was much softer than it had been. His breaths were heavy and so was every sob that came from her, and it was a while before either did anything other than breathe and sob.

Slowly, he bent over her small form, the chains at his neck clattering to the ground one by one as he did, and this time the D-class didn’t cower away. “Please forgive me, Andrea,” he whispered into her ear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also I've decided that Andrea was born in Canada (it's _way_ easier for me to picture her accent if it' Canadian tbh, I've been having trouble with that this whole time) but she grew up in California since she was fairly young.


	7. Chapter 7

When Bailey reached the office door he knocked a few times, and waited patiently.

“Come in, J███,” came Dr Morrigan’s voice from within.

She actually sounded a little disinterested, Bailey thought to himself as he opened the door. However, he knew she was anything but. She was just tired - it had been a long day for everyone. Morrigan couldn’t be anything less than utterly invested in what was to come - today was quite a big day for the project, after all.

Indeed, when he set eyes on his supervisor, sat at her desk slumped back a little in her chair, she looked exhausted, if not even a little bit victorious.

“Ready to go?” Bailey asked her tentatively, loitering by the open door.

“Yeah, yeah…” Morrigan replied. “Just getting my head together, I’m ready.”

With that, she stood, and the two left the office. Morrigan shut the door behind, and they headed for the elevator, taking them down to the fourth floor. They reached the laboratory and Morrigan swiped her keycard to let them in, and together they navigated to the small station set aside for their project. Bailey caught the eye of the familiar lab technician - thankfully not looking too busy at that moment - and offered a small smile as she made her way over.

“I’m… sorry, T██… but I’ve never actually analysed a semen sample before,” Bailey said, turning a little to the left and looking down at the researcher. “Don’t get me wrong, I have microscopy experience - but mostly double antibody staining.”

Morrigan smiled warmly up at him and waved a dismissive hand. “Don’t worry about it J███, neither have I. That’s what S██’s here for, she’ll tell us what we need to know.”

Bailey couldn’t help but notice the lab tech was beautiful, and as she came into his space he felt himself blush a little. S██ addressed Morrigan.

“I know you’re gonna have a lot of questions T██… but first thing’s first,” the girl said confidently. “I wanna know what you’ve brought me, ‘cause I had a quick look before you got here and I’m kinda confused.”

She moved around the older woman and took a Petri dish from a small incubator on the worktop. She gazed inside, contemplating it for just a moment. “Is this from one of our objects or something?”

Morrigan nodded. “049.”

S██’s eyes widened in realisation. “Oh, _that_ project!”

That must mean she’d heard some things, Bailey thought to himself. Everyone was talking about it, after all. However, now wasn’t the time to clear up misunderstandings, or dispel rumours. That could wait. “What’s confusing you about it?” he asked. “What have you found?”

The lab tech fixed the sample under a large microscope and leaned in. She turned dials as she talked, adjusting the focus. “Well, the rest is in the freezer now but when we _got_ it I kinda assumed it was multiple separate human samples combined - you sure this is a single ejaculation?”

“I assure you it’s a single sample,” Morrigan said resolutely. “It was hard enough getting _one_.”

S██ shrugged quickly.

“You said you took it for a human sample,” Bailey pressed. “Is it similar?”

“Take a look for yourself.”

Ushering the RA over, the girl took a second sample from the incubator and fixed this under the microscope instead.

“This is a control sample from one of our D-class, totally unremarkable male,” she continued as Bailey leaned over and looked through the eyepieces.

“Okay…”

She gave him a little time before switching the samples again. “And _this_ is from your doctor. Notice anything… anomalous?”

He frowned deeply, in concentration more than anything. For a minute or so Bailey watched the cells swim about under the microscope, under the light, before returning his attention to the lab tech, who was grinning like she’d just told him an impossible riddle. They stared each other down.

“They’re… almost identical,” he finally said. He moved aside so Morrigan could take a look, which she did gladly. “Nothing anomalous _about_ it.”

S██’s smirk was wider than ever. “Exactly. Compared with that control sample - same composition, density… pH… your doctor’s sample might as well be human except the volume is about four times greater. And… one other thing.”

She braced her arms on the worktop and leaned in. “Morphology is a little off…” she said to Morrigan, who didn’t look up from the sample. “ _SCP-049_ has more abnormal sperm cells than a control. Enough so we noticed, that is.”

The lab tech urged Bailey to take another look. “See what I mean…” she continued as the assistant again took Morrigan’s place. The girl bent over a secondary eyepiece. “See, some of them just aren’t right, they don’t have the right _anatomy_ , some look normal but they just aren’t _moving right_ , see?”

“Yeah, I see.”

“Could a heightened number of abnormal cells cause… a lack of fertility?” Morrigan interjected.

“Under normal circumstances, maybe.” S██ shrugged again. “ _In this case_ , I don’t think that would be the cause. Remember, same cell density per unit volume… overall _healthy_ cell count is still much higher than average - so if you asked me, I’d expect quite the opposite.”

The girl looked up, an eyebrow raised. “Are you _trying_ to breed your doctor?”

“No,” Morrigan replied, shaking her head a little to either side. “He doesn’t need kids, one of him’s bad enough. But by now we’d expect he’d have knocked up our D-class. Since _that_ hasn’t happened… I want to start IVF trials. I just wanna know whether it’s him or her.”

S██ nodded. “We’ll get on it. You need anything else?”

“Yeah.” The older gestured to the Petri dish. “Can you sequence his DNA? I want a profile for him, I wanna see what we’re dealing with.”

“No problem. Might take a while, that’s the only thing… gotta wait your turn.”

“That’s fine. Just don’t waste that sample - took us a week to get it.”

*

*

Some hours passed, and in a quiet dorm, Bailey staggered in the front door, barely balancing his satchel and two bags of groceries. Just in time, he dropped the contents on the kitchen counter before they spilled from his hands. R██ looked up from the contents of the saucepan that he’d been tending to and greeted his roommate.

“Hey R██,” Bailey said. He set about unpacking straight away. “I got more eggs.”

“Thanks buddy,” R██ said in a thick Russian accent. “So how was it? What did you do at work?”

Reaching up to put away a jar of instant coffee, Bailey grinned. “I spent my day playing with cum,” he said simply.

R██ laughed. It was a quick, hearty bark that reached every part of his face. “No, really, what did you do?”

“Honestly! My supervisor and I, we were in the lab, there was a _lot_ of cum, we even got another girl involved!”

While Bailey smirked wider, his roommate barked again. The two mens’ start dates at the facility had only been a week or so apart, so when assigned to share a dorm they’d bonded over the experience of being entirely new to the SCP Foundation, and being about the same age didn’t hurt - they’d become good friends since the very start.

While R██ was a technician maintaining SCP-1057 on his very first rotation, the work was sometimes very similar to Bailey’s. When they got home they couldn’t resist swapping stories. R██ was particularly interested in Bailey’s work, and that was no surprise - it seemed everyone at the facility knew what they were doing on the 049 project.

“I take it there was no rape today, then?” R██ asked. For the most part he returned his attention to the stew on the cooker. “Would explain why you’re in such a good mood.”

Bailey shook his head sadly as he closed the fridge door. “No… there was. The sample had to be fresh, we brought it straight up… and I had to be there to help out.”

He smiled weakly as he cracked open the cold beer can in his hand. “We’ve been trying to get one all week… it’s been a bit of a nightmare actually, if I’m honest I still can’t believe we did it. We started out optimistic… we thought using a condom might do the trick, but 049 just pulled it straight off and that was that.”

The RA chuckled a little to himself as he drank. R██ listened intently. “After _that_ we had to resort to a breeding mount. You know, the type they use for cattle? We knew we were onto something there but it just took D-22 a good few tries - and a _lot_ of luck to make the switch, had to get the _technique_ right, she said.”

He drank a little more deeply after that. “Sounds like you should be thanking _her_ for getting you your cum,” R██ contributed.

“Yeah, it was all her. Christ… you know, it’s messed up how she can call it a ‘technique’ like that.”

“How’s she doing? Bud, can you grab me some plates?”

Bailey did as his friend had asked and opened the cabinet, passing the plates across the worktop. “She’s… getting used to it, by the looks of things. They both are.”

Ignoring the plates for the time being, R██ offered a hand on his friend’s arm. He was one of the only people who knew just how much the tests had weighed on Bailey’s mind, and that’s how it would stay. “Buddy, the things you see in there could fuck up anyone. It’s normal to get fucked up.”

Bailey sighed. “Yeah, I know that.”

“And you’re not the _only_ one having therapy for it.”

“I know _that_ … It’s not that I feel _abnormal_ for seeking it out, I just wish I didn’t need it to begin with. I… …therapy’s helping but I just wish I could be like T██ and E██… and not even miss a beat.”

“You will some day. It takes time.”

R██ smiled to himself as he plated up the stew. “My first week here, I saw 1057 rip a guy’s whole arm off. I thought _that_ fucked me up, didn’t think I could go back in there. But it turns out I wanted the job way more than that.”

“Me too, R██. This has been my dream since I was five years old.”

The technician passed his roommate a loaded plate, and the two moved into the living room to eat. They settled on the couches and Bailey switched on the TV.

“There’s _no way_ you could’ve dreamed about working here since you were _five_ ,” R██ said. “This is the fucking SCP Foundation, you wouldn’t have known about it.”

Bailey swallowed his first mouthful before answering. “It’s not _exactly_ like that.”

“Then what do you mean? Why are you here, J███?”

“What do _you_ mean?”

“I mean you worked so fucking hard to _get_ here. We all did but _you_ worked harder. I just wanna know what your deal is.”

The RA didn’t answer straight away. For a while he stared down at his stew, watching the steam rise from it and disappear in front of his eyes. “When I was a child… I had an encounter with aliens,” he finally said.

“Aliens? You sure bud?”

“No. Not any more. All my life I was sure of it. Until I was doing my A-levels and I happened to learn about the SCP Foundation. After that… I thought it could be _anything_. But whatever it was… I just had to know it was real. I wanted to know for sure.”

“What did you see that fucked you up so much?”

“That’s the other thing… I don’t remember. I remember almost _nothing_ \- all I know is I saw something I wasn’t _supposed_ to, or _met_ something… my parents never believed me, ever. They were there too, I remember _that_. Always said it was me and my imagination… when I kept on with it they just made fun, said I must be crazy.”

“D’you think amnestics could’ve been involved? If it was an anomaly, the MTFs would’ve come and cleaned up. Maybe that’s why your parents don’t remember.”

“I’m almost certain of it. I think… that I can still remember because I was just a child… they’d have adjusted the dose, wouldn’t they? Better to give a child too little than risk brain damage.”

R██ only hummed in agreement, and after that, the two men ate in relative silence. When they finished, Bailey took the empty plates back to the kitchen and promised he’d wash up before bed. Right now he just needed a distraction, something to take him away from the thoughts clogging up his head.

“Forza?” he asked his roommate, still seated.

“You know I’ll just kick your ass again.”

Bailey grinned and crossed the kitchen space, back into the living room, and picked up the controllers, chucking one at R██. “Just try it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After all the research I've done for this chapter, Google is gonna be recommending me some _shit_.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been anticipating this chapter for a while tbh since it's kind of an ambitious idea. Hope I did it right.
> 
> I don't think I did. I don't think I got the emotions right. But... it's quite an impossible situation in many ways to recreate in reality so all I could do was my current best.
> 
> ALSO: when 049 shrieks just picture the sound Salad Fingers made when he stepped in the bear trap in episode 4 (and if you've somehow never seen Salad Fingers, _fucking watch it_ ) - just much louder and much more inhuman and fucked up.

The observation room smelled faintly of a decaying body, which told D-22560, as she made her way in and held her left hand up for Bailey to scan, that SCP-049 was working on a new cadaver in his chamber. Not that that was a problem - she’d long gotten used to the smell, and while it lingered, it didn’t bother her any more.

She was passed to Morrigan for further instructions, and handed a stopwatch, larger than any she’d seen before yet still able to fit into her hand.

“Today we’re gonna record 049’s refractory period,” the researcher said to her. “As accurately as we can.”

She indicated the buttons in turn. “Standard design. Start and stop… and reset. What we need from you… start the timer when he ejaculates. When he starts again, stop and reset. This one will transfer the reading directly to our system so all _you_ need to do is time.”

“Okay… sure.” D-22560 glanced through the window - sure enough, SCP-049 stood at his operating table, deep in concentration as he worked. Either he didn’t know they were about to test, or he didn’t care.

“And repeat that until we have enough readings.”

D-22560’s head snapped back to Morrigan. “Huh?”

“Here, take these.”

The older dropped a heavy pile of blankets into the D-class’ arms. D-22560 stared.

“Get comfortable,” Morrigan said. “We won’t start until you’re both ready.”

What began as a slight concern was quickly growing into a creeping dread as D-22560 made her way wordlessly towards the door. As he let her in the containment chamber, that familiar, pitying look was all over Bailey’s face. He didn’t say anything as she made her way in.

D-22560 dropped the blankets in the middle of the room while SCP-049 turned, and made for her. The plague doctor offered his hand for her to shake as normal, however the girl closed the distance between them and put her arms around him. He was clearly taken aback, however, returned his half of the awkward embrace.

She placed her free hand on the doctor’s arm. “I don’t think it’s gonna be good,” she said quietly.

“What must we do?”

The D-class broke away, returning to the blankets, and dutifully dropped to her knees. “She said get comfortable.”

After arranging the haphazard pile of throws into something manageable, she pulled off her boots and put them aside. Her sweat pants and panties were next, she placed these to the side in a neat pile. Reluctantly, SCP-049 joined her, kneeling down behind the girl, who had now sunk onto her elbows and buried her face in the throws. They were as ready as they’d ever be.

D-22560 smelled the familiar soap in the air and almost immediately after she did, the doctor’s hands were on her bare skin, hungry as he bent over her, his heavy body pressing her into the throws and one gloved hand trailing up her stomach, under her T-shirt. She could hear his slow, lustful breaths against her right ear as he squeezed her breasts, slowly but roughly. As he coaxed a nipple to attention, massaging back and forth, he ground his hips eagerly into her from behind.

The doctor was ready. D-22560’s whimper was lost in the blankets underneath her as he pulled aside his coat, positioned himself, and pushed his way into her pussy, as deep as he could go. His moan of ecstasy was so quiet, yet right against her ear, she heard it clearly.

All she had to do was ride it out, she thought to herself as SCP-049 began to rut at a steady pace. He didn’t seem quite so urgent today, it was like in the back of his mind - despite being utterly out of his mind right now - he knew they had plenty of time. Without him pinning her down quite so forcefully and without her fighting, she felt strangely relaxed. The whole atmosphere was relaxed. As she thought about that, a low keen escaping her lips yet lost in the blankets, it seemed crazy - she’d actually gotten _used to this_.

SCP-049’s thrusts grew more urgent, more erratic, and he panted against the girl’s ear. She knew she had to concentrate - or this would take an awful lot longer than it had to - yet it grew harder to concentrate the closer the doctor’s rough strokes brought her to the edge. She’d gotten used to this too yet a part of her still cursed herself for it - however it was undeniable that whether he was in control or not, SCP-049 knew how to reduce a woman to a trembling wreck.

Her time was now - underneath the doctor’s warm body she shuddered as she came. Though she bit down hard on the throws, each of her anguished howls was loud, and the bedding couldn’t hide them - the researchers on the other side of that window would hear them clearly yet, D-22560 hadn’t felt humiliated by that thought for a while now. By now, it was hard to care.

The way her cunt spasmed around the doctor’s dick was enough to send him over the edge, it seemed. He sighed in her ear and spilled deep inside of her. D-22560, barely coming around, retained just enough lucidity to hit the button on the device in her hand.

The two were silent and still as they lay there, SCP-049 breathing heavy, shoulders rising and falling deeply. Like every time before it, he remained exactly where he was, buried inside of the girl, and didn’t move. D-22560 didn’t even lift her head from the blankets - if they had to do this again she wouldn’t bother moving an inch unless she had to. Already she was hot - uncomfortably hot under the doctor’s heated body and thick hide.

She could still smell the stuff in the air - they were still feeding it in, ready for whenever SCP-049 could go again. The timer told D-22560, as she felt the doctor begin to move again, and she hit the button, that five minutes and fifteen seconds had passed. She held the timer loosely as she gripped the bedsheets and prepared to ride it out again.

“Keep timing, D-22,” came Morrigan’s voice through the speakers. “You’re doing well.”

D-22560 wondered, as she lay there helpless and let SCP-049 fuck her in whatever way he needed to, just how many times they would be made to do this.

*

SCP-049 came a second time, but D-22560 didn’t. She was fairly overstimulated by now (and could hardly imagine how _he_ felt) and found it almost impossible to make the best of it. She hit the button and lifted her eyes tiredly up to watch the time go by on the display. The plague doctor caught his breath, still lying flush against her own body. It was too hot. She was far too hot, she needed to move, she needed to change position, flip the blankets to the cool side or something-

As D-22560 began to crawl out from under him, SCP-049 shrieked suddenly and loudly, and gripped her hip painfully tight and pulled her flush to his body. That shriek was a truly unholy noise that, had it not pierced straight through her right eardrum, the girl wouldn’t have thought he could _possibly_ produce.

The doctor didn’t move a muscle. The rough hand on D-22560’s hip didn’t come away, he made sure she couldn’t try and get away again. Needless to say, she wouldn’t try that again any time soon. She’d have to just deal with the heat.

 _What the fuck was_ that _about?_

Eventually his grip relaxed, and he got to his knees as he resumed steady yet hungry thrusts. D-22560 hit the button again - five minutes and sixteen seconds - and it started over again.

He couldn’t stop. He couldn’t stop, and she couldn’t move. D-22560 sunk even further into the blankets when she realised they were _both_ trapped in this cycle, and it showed no signs of ending.

*

They must’ve fucked about five times by now, back to back. Maybe six. D-22560 couldn’t remember. She was close to the edge again yet SCP-049 came first with a small, exhausted sigh. The D-class hit the button. She was more uncomfortable than she’d ever been in her life. She needed to come, but there was no way she’d risk moving again - that would have to wait.

The two were filthy - sweat and cum clung to them thick, and D-22560 wanted nothing more than to wipe herself down, even being half this filthy would do right now. But they couldn’t move. She wondered how he could even _make_ this much cum at such short notice, fuck after fuck… it was like his body reset in a way no human could, every time.

SCP-049 bent over her again - not lying flush like he had been before, but bracing trembling arms on either side of her, leaning in so she could hear his quiet words. “Andrea… I am sorry. I am so sorry this is happening. I cannot stop.”

“No…” D-22560 replied weakly. She buried her face back in the blankets, damp from her sweat. “ _I’m_ sorry.”

For the first time that day, she began to quietly cry. She hardly ever cried during testing these days but it would seem there was still a limit to how much she could take. She turned her head around as much as she could and met the doctor’s eye. “This is all my fault… none of this would’ve ever happened if it wasn’t for me and that _fucking soap_ …”

Gloved fingers came up to D-22560’s face, and with soft fingers he brushed away the tears that ran down her cheek. “May I remind you… it was I who requested that you, and _only_ you, be present during these tests. You did not have to be here, and only I am to blame.”

The girl shook her head before quickly burying it in the throws again. Her voice was muffled but still audible. “No one else could’ve done this. No one else is immune. It would’ve been me anyway, I’d have been here for all of them.”

She reached out and took the doctor’s hand in her own, and squeezed gently. “We’re in this together,” she continued. “And all we can do is ride it out. It _has_ to end soon… right?”

SCP-049 didn’t answer that. When the time came, that familiar smell was thick in the air again, and with a tired whimper, one that could’ve easily been from pain, he again began to move. D-22560 cried into the throws as she hit the button. Five minutes and sixteen seconds. She was so sore, it was agony every time SCP-049’s cock moved inside of her. She couldn’t possibly take another second of this. She couldn’t even begin to imagine how much pain _he_ was in.

*

*

D-22560 lay alone on her bed, and the world around her was quiet. As she stared vacantly up at the ceiling, her tired mind was completely empty.

They’d fucked eleven times by the end. It might’ve even been twelve, she couldn’t be sure exactly how many times they’d done it - she was so tired, and at some point she’d lost count.

The moment she returned to her own room, D-22560 had taken a long shower. Even though she had been fucked truly raw, at least she could be clean. The girl rolled her head slowly on her pillow, to the right, and her eyes set upon the sketchpad lying on her bedside table. If she was going to lie here all evening she might as well draw something.

Instead she rolled her head back and resumed staring at the empty ceiling. She had _no_ motivation to draw right now. She could put the radio on, she had the app on her tablet - however that would mean getting up and moving. Right now that was far too painful.

She sighed quietly to herself. She hurt, of course, but SCP-049 had suffered far more, and for that reason she wasn’t complaining about how she felt. Now that it was over, she could only hope more than anything - for his sake more than hers - that the Foundation never, _ever_ asked anything like that again.

 _There’s gotta be_ something _I can do for him_ , the girl thought. She had to make it up to him somehow. All she could do was art - she could draw a few diagrams, posters, something like that for him… maybe. If she could get her hands on a medical textbook, anything like that, she could easily do it.

Four small knocks at the door. D-22560 lifted her head up a little to look. A moment after that, she heard the sound of a keycard opening her door. The fact that her visitor had knocked before entering made perfect sense when she saw Bailey on the other side, loitering a little before coming in and closing the door behind. He didn’t sit down, instead shifted awkwardly on his feet as he looked down at the girl.

“Hi,” he said meekly.

D-22560 made a small, non-committal noise in response, her attention focused again on the ceiling.

“How are you feel- no… forget I asked that,” the RA said, shaking his head a little. “That’s an awful thing to ask. I imagine you feel dreadful-”

“What do you want?” D-22560 cut him off - fairly rudely - but she couldn’t care less.

“I just… I’ve come to tell you… you’ve been given two weeks to rest. No testing.”

“And 049? Does he get to rest?”

“Yes, he gets two weeks as well.”

“Damn fucking right he does,” she said bitterly.

Finally, with a great effort to keep her lower half still, D-22560 sat up straight. “Why?” she began. “Why did you _do that?_ Did you really need to know his fucking _refractory period_ that badly? You _couldn’t_ do without knowing that ONE fucking detail?”

She was vaguely aware she was crying again, the image of Bailey frozen there swam with unshed tears. The words didn’t come out easy, her throat was tight. “He looked _miserable_ by the end of it. You proud of yourself? You made an SCP fucking MISERABLE. How does THAT feel?”

The assistant, still frozen where he stood, looked as though the D-class had fired a bullet at him. With a tiny shred of satisfaction, D-22560 noted he did look truly guilty.

“It’s… really not up to me,” he replied. “I just do what I’m told. If you really want to know, I thought it was excessive too… T██ and E██ insisted. They insist we take whatever opportunity we have to learn all we can. _That’s_ why we did it.”

“I know… I know, we’re _all_ following orders. But… it was cruel making him do that, wasn’t it? For such… a _meaningless_ piece of information. He doesn’t deserve that.”

She fixed the assistant’s gaze sternly. “You shouldn’t be here. You should be down there, apologising to _him_. Not me. And you better fucking mean it. I mean… it’s bad enough he’s cooped up in here all the fucking time, at least _I_ get to get out of my room and walk about - he just has his room, he just has cadavers to play with. You better…”

The girl’s voice wavered noticeably. “You better give him a fuck ton of cadavers to make up for this.”

“We will, don’t worry. And I’m going there next. To apologise to 049. I just wanted to give him time to get clean, that’s why I came to you first.”

“Did he get a shower?”

“Yes… he seemed to enjoy it.”

D-22560 believed him, yet the way Bailey grimaced a little told her that even he had noticed SCP-049 had suffered. “Don’t waste your time here - go to him!”

For a short while Bailey hesitated. “D-22…” he began gently. When the D-class only stared, he kept on. “Is there any possible way… you might… have feelings for SCP-049?”

That was the last straw. “What the _fuck?_ ” she cried. “What the FUCK?”

Bailey stepped back, again noticeably tense. “I’m sorry, I only asked-”

“Just because I _CARE_ about an SCP I have to have _FEELINGS_ for him? That’s _fucking retarded!_ "

"D-22, I'm sorry-"

"You know, _Doctor_ , I thought you were different. But you're not. If you jump to _that_ conclusion because I have a SHRED of empathy for 049… you’re already fitting in here fucking perfectly.”

She knew it to be true - she didn’t feel that way about him. But she did care about how he felt - just because he wasn’t human, just because he was strong… and probably immortal… and not entirely lucid - those were no reasons to make him suffer.

They were in this together.

D-22560 winced as she threw herself back down on the bed, and rolled towards the wall. “Just go, J███.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short one this time but we got some long ones coming up.

“Three-hundred and sixteen seconds,” Dr Morrigan said to the young assistant before he’d even closed the office door. “That’s the refractory period.”

Fresh from his trip to SCP-049’s chamber, still reeling somewhat from how miserable the anomaly did indeed look, Bailey didn’t know how to respond at first. “Um… good to know.”

He drew closer to his superior, who remained seated. “T██… if I may ask…” he began, nervously playing with the strap of his satchel. “Was the experiment today really necessary? I mean… it’s clear 049 has suffered… _disproportionately_ … for quite a small finding. And for such a small detail… we spent quite a lot of time today, didn’t we?”

Morrigan leaned back, as she did her old office chair creaked loudly. She deliberated for a moment.

Eventually she returned her gaze to the RA. “Maybe it wasn’t necessary. But we needed to do it to know that.”

Bailey said nothing. That lingering nausea he felt during testing returned in full - somehow knowing it had all been in vain messed with him even more, and he decided right then and there that he wouldn’t share that particular detail with D-22560 _or_ SCP-049. Ever.

“That’s not all,” Morrigan continued. She sat upright, and navigated on the computer in front of her. “We got some _interesting_ results back from the lab.”

The assistant perked up at that, and hurried around Morrigan’s desk to take a look at her screen. He leaned over the back of her chair. “Really? What did they find?”

“DNA sequencing was… unsuccessful.” The researcher shrugged, and gestured dismissively with her hands. “Failure’s been attributed to the DNA itself. _Too fragile_. Apparently the reagent destroyed it every time.”

A pause. Bailey had been there, they’d shown him how it was done, he’d even prepared a few samples himself. “We used multiple reagents,” he said.

“I know. That means it’s back to the drawing board.”

“Maybe it’s impossible. Maybe we’ll _never_ have his genome.”

“Maybe.”

Morrigan leaned back again, and Bailey jumped off the chair. She turned to face him, grinning. “There’s good news, at least - IVF also failed. Every time. At least we don’t have to worry about pregnancy.”

“That _is_ a relief. D’you know why it failed?”

“Apparently 049 isn’t compatible with human reproduction. His cells can’t fertilise a healthy human egg, and that’s that. Seems he’s perfectly fertile, he’s _not_ shooting blanks… he’s compatible with _something_ , maybe… but whatever it is, it’s not human beings.”

To say it was a relief would’ve been an understatement. It was true - the team hadn’t been trying, but they hadn’t made any effort to prevent a pregnancy either. All they ever did was test D-22560’s blood. And Bailey knew in his heart that if something did happen, Morrigan would make her carry a pregnancy to term… and neither D-22560 or SCP-049 would have a say in that.

They were better off not playing with things they _truly_ didn’t understand.

“Go on,” Morrigan’s words dragged Bailey back to reality. “Take an early one, we’re pretty much done here.”

“Um… thanks. But there was something else I needed to ask.”

Morrigan sat up straighter. “Fire away.”

He really didn’t know how best to say it. “I had a small concern,” the RA began. “Now I might be wrong… I put it to her and she got rather angry actually… I’m concerned D-22 might be developing feelings for 049. Just thought you should know… you know, in case you wanted to investigate.”

Whatever Bailey had been expecting, it wasn’t for Morrigan to laugh. It was a short, derisive bark, and Bailey was a little taken-aback.

“You… don’t think so?”

The woman chuckled a little, and leaned forward to her keyboard. “C’mere,” she said, waving Bailey closer. “I wanna show you something.”

Again he leaned in, watching Morrigan navigate folders on her system until she came to a saved video file.

“Look at this.”

She opened the video and navigated to a specific point in time - the security feed in SCP-049’s chamber showed the doctor knelt in the middle of the dark room, and D-22560 straddling him, trapped in his grip and frozen in fear. He fucked her greedily from behind. Bailey had seen this video before - it was the very first incident. The day D-22560 had been sent in to be terminated.

His instinct was to look away, he didn’t _enjoy_ watching these moments. However, he didn’t. Morrigan brought this up for a reason, surely.

She zoomed in on the D-class’ face, and Bailey remarked internally that the cameras in this place were good - he could see the tears running clearly down the girl’s contorted face. Every detail of the moment had been captured, crystal clear.

“Does this look like the face of someone with _feelings_ for their partner?”

There was no audio - probably stored in a different file - yet Bailey could almost hear her sobbing. His heart sank ever further as he watched her cry. “No… you’re right T██. It doesn’t.”


	10. Chapter 10

D-22560 set her pencil down on the bedside table, and took a moment to stretch. Now much more comfortable, she admired her work, getting up off the bed and looking down at the finished diagram. She’d borrowed a beat-up anatomy textbook from the hospital, and this time she’d chosen something the authors agreed was beautiful. The circle of Willis, that’s what its name was. D-22560 thought to herself as her eyes roved over the branching pathways, and the neat annotations she’d made, that it was just a bunch of blood vessels to her. However as a doctor, SCP-049 might appreciate it.

She tore the page out of her sketchbook, as gently as she could, folded it up and stowed it carefully in her small bag. Now it was there, along with the two she’d drawn before it, there was no way she’d leave it behind when she was next collected for testing. It had been a little over two weeks since the last test, and she hadn’t seen SCP-049 since.

As D-22560 left her room and made her way down the corridor, she hoped to herself that he’d recovered. She hoped he could put it behind him. And if he was still hurt… if he hadn’t been able to cheer up, the girl thought to herself as she made her way into the cafeteria and joined a small line to the checkout, if that was the case… hopefully these drawings would help. At the very least it would be clear _one_ person in this facility was there for him.

As she moved along, curious eyes bored into D-22560’s skin from all angles. She ignored them as best she could. Everyone at the facility knew about the project - everyone knew why the lone D-class in the orange T-shirt and sweat pants was allowed to roam the site more or less freely, and why they were to let her do so. _Everyone_ knew what they were doing, what _she_ was there to do, and _everyone_ was talking about it.

D-22560 got her sandwich and took a seat in the far corner of the cafeteria. Of course it bothered her, the way people stared. However, she accepted it without complaint - it was all part of her punishment, after all.

The girl ate in peace for a while, and most of the staff members around her filtered out as time went on. Aside from a few people scattered around the room, she was on her own. However, it wasn’t long before she had company - feeling her bench dip ever so slightly with the added weight of another person, the girl swung around to see who had joined her.

“Good afternoon, D-22,” Dr Morrigan said.

“Hey.” D-22560 often took for granted that the researchers knew where she was at all times - most of the time she forgot that chip was still under her skin. However, it had been two weeks since she’d seen a familiar face.

“This is just a quick stop,” the researcher said, wasting no time. “Wanted to let you know I’m going away for a while - one of our MTF units needs me on location so I won’t be here for testing.”

“Oh… okay. How long?”

“A week, probably. Maybe more… all depends on how long it takes to get the job done.”

Morrigan thought for a moment. “I’m leaving Doctor Radford in charge while I’m gone. I don’t expect there will be any tests, but it’s up to him. He might have something planned. But if he does, someone will come get you… and it’s business as usual. All right?”

D-22560 nodded, and the researcher offered a hand on the girl’s shoulder as she said goodbye, and stood, and walked away. As she watched her leave the cafeteria, D-22560 tried to figure out whether she was going to miss her being around - knowing she was there. After all, she’d always been good to her, when _the Good of the Foundation_ wasn’t at stake…

She wasn’t sure.

*

*

Being D-class personnel meant always being ready to leave one’s cell at a moment’s notice. Since she’d arrived, D-22560 had learned quickly to be awake, changed and ready to test before the working day began. Of course experiments took place overnight, however they’d always been given time to get ready since they weren’t expected to stay awake indefinitely on the off-chance they were needed.

So much had changed since then, and she wasn’t really D-class any more, yet some things hadn’t changed at all - two days after Morrigan’s departure, D-22560 sat on her bed, fully-dressed.

When the girl heard the gentle rapping on her door, she knew exactly who had come to collect her. She looked up from her work as the door slid open, and Bailey stood in the doorway. He didn't enter.

D-22560 put her sketchbook down and slid gently off the bed. “I’m ready, I’m ready…” she said as she slung her bag over her shoulder and followed the assistant out into the corridor before he’d had the chance to say a single word.

As they walked, the girl cast a glance up at the man. “…What are we doing this time?” she asked somewhat more nervously.

“E██ has something special planned,” Bailey replied. “And he needs you- someone… to get hands-on with 049.”

“Oh.”

No more words were needed between them - D-22560 knew exactly what “hands-on” meant when it came to SCP-049. The two walked through the facility in silence, and while they did, the girl consoled herself with the knowledge that nothing they were put through from here on out could possibly be as bad as what they’d already faced. Still, she wondered what Radford could possibly have planned.

They didn’t make the usual turns to SCP-049’s chamber, D-22560 noticed after a few minutes. This was the way to the on-site hospital, she was certain of it.

 _Of course_ , she thought to herself. That actually made sense. She didn’t know all that much about Radford except that he was an actual medical doctor before coming to the SCP Foundation as a researcher, and although D-22560 herself had had very little direct conversation with him, it was clear from the way Morrigan spoke of him that his medical experience made him particularly valuable to the project - she always spoke very highly of him.

Despite all that, the stoic, older man had always scared D-22560 a little, and spending the day with him seemed a daunting task right now.

Bailey led her through the hospital corridors, and they stopped at an examination room. He held the door open and gestured for her to lead, and when the D-class made her way in she was met with a light, spacious room that could’ve been torn straight out of any hospital in the country. Compared to the stark interview rooms she was used to seeing in the facility, D-22560 felt it to be welcoming. A few simple chairs were positioned haphazardly around a small machine in the very centre of the room, and somewhere between her and it, Radford stood, evidently eager to get started.

“Good morning, D-22,” Radford greeted her kindly. “Let’s just get straight to it.”

D-22560 shrugged as she turned back, watching Bailey sidle in. Once he'd scanned the girl, he took a seat next to the machine, but she still stood nervously. “Sure. What are we _doing_ today? Why aren’t we down with 049?”

“We’ll move down there when I teach you how to use the machine,” he gestured to it with a lazy wave of his free hand. “It should be simple if everything goes our way - I want you to perform an EEG on 049.”

“A… a what?”

Radford circled the girl as he spoke. “You remember doing the ECG a couple months back? Sticking those wires on 049? On our end we were looking at the electrical activity in his heart. An electroencephalogram is similar in principle… just you’ll be pasting the wires to his head this time, and _we’ll_ be looking at the electrical activity in his brain. Obviously I need _you_ to wire ‘em up since no one else can get close.”

D-22560 nodded in understanding.

“I know you can do it, you did a near-perfect job with the ECG. But _this_ is a little more complex, so I can’t talk you through it from the observation room and expect you to pull it off. Which is why we’re here.”

He stalked around the back of Bailey’s chair and placed his hands on the younger man’s shoulders, earning a curious glance back from the assistant. “Today _J_ ███ will be the test subject - you’ll be practicing on him.”

Bailey grinned shyly and offered D-22560 an encouraging shrug. The girl smiled back at him, equally nervous, and at that, Bailey ushered her closer.

Radford approached the machine and picked up a laminated diagram. “Let’s get started.”

*

*

“Hang on 049… you’ve still got some on you. Let me clean you up a bit-”

D-22560 eased the last electrode off SCP-049’s hood and set the bundle of wires down on the small console. She crossed from the middle of the room where the doctor was seated, to his operating table, and picked up a small wad of gauze. The girl ran this under the tap until it was damp.

“Don’t move,” she said as she approached the doctor again. He turned his head curiously to her. “I wanna get the rest of this crap off you.”

She placed one hand softly on his rough hood to keep him steady, and began to rub gently at the residue still stuck to his hide. She stood there for a couple of minutes, scrubbing until SCP-049 was clean, and eventually moved around to clean a couple of places on his hard temple.

As she finally stepped back and wheeled the light machine away, the girl smiled widely.

SCP-049’s eyes smiled as he stood up from his chair and shook her hand briefly. “Thank you Andrea.”

“Don’t mention it. It’s… been good today, hasn’t it? Really good.”

She still smiled from ear to ear as she placed a gentle hand on his arm, and Radford’s voice boomed through the speakers up above. “D-22, you’ve done well, and our preliminary readings have come through fine. Please leave the containment chamber, and bring the machine with you.”

D-22560 returned the doctor’s smile as she looked up into his gentle eyes. “I’ll see you soon, probably,” she assured him before wheeling the machine away, and waiting by the door for a second before she was let out.

On the other side of the door, she looked over to Radford, who sat at the wide table, for further instructions.

“What’s next?” she asked brightly.

“That’s it,” Radford said simply, leaning back in his chair and meeting her eye from across the wide room. “I’ll take some time to look at the readings, but you’re free to go.”

“Thanks Doctor.” D-22560 spun the small machine so it was in front of her, and leaned on it only a little. “What about this?”

“Don’t worry about that… I’m sure J███ won’t mind taking that back?”

Bailey gestured non-committaly, and got to his feet. “Of course not, I’ll take it when I leave. Thanks D-22, you were amazing in there.”

The RA let D-22560 out of the observation room, and as he turned back, he and his superior remarked to one another how much of a way that girl had with the anomaly. On her way out she overheard it, and as she made her way along the silent corridor, she felt her already-impossible smile grow wider still. It was true, the two of them had developed a rapport that surpassed what any researcher had been able to achieve, and it was undeniable. However, SCP-049 had a tendency to be co-operative when the two of them weren’t being forced to fuck.

They hadn’t fucked today. Radford hadn’t wanted it, it would seem. At times while D-22560 had been in that chamber, and watched the doctor working on his cadaver - a mess of white wires glued to his hood and the machine transmitting data to the researcher in the next room - she’d expected to smell the soap in the air at any moment, even braced herself for it. After all, they made SCP-049 fuck her when he was wired up for the ECG the other month.

Yet it never happened. The doctor had also been noticeably relieved at this.

It would’ve probably been a great day even if they _had_ , she thought to herself. The whole day had actually been _fun_. The three of them had talked the whole time they’d been over in the hospital, practicing wiring Bailey up to that machine. Radford had asked all about her life before prison, and about her art. She and Bailey had laughed together as she pasted the electrodes to his head. Radford even had a sandwich tray brought in for lunch.

And when they moved down into the lower depths of the facility to carry out the experiment for real, everything had gone smoothly. If D-22560 had to think of a hitch - in all the excitement, thoughts of giving her diagrams to SCP-049 had dropped out of her head entirely. She ran fingers lightly along the front of her small satchel as she walked - the drawings were still in there. It wasn’t a big deal though, she thought to herself. There would be future tests, plenty of opportunities. Besides… SCP-049 had been in good spirits. He hadn’t needed anything to cheer him up.

Heavy, urgent footfalls behind her, approaching fast, made D-22560 slow and turn her head. When she saw Bailey jogging, catching up to her, she stopped and made back the other way.

“D-22...” the RA gasped as he stopped in front of the girl, catching his breath. “…E██ wants you… has questions about testing… about 049. Made me come and get you.”

“Okay… can you let me back in heavy please? I can’t get in on my own.”

Bailey shook his head. “He’s gone up to his office. D’you know how to get there?”

“Uh… fifth floor right?”

“Yeah. Room 5-662. Leave the main elevator, go to the end and turn right, it’s on your right if you keep going. I have to get back to the hospital… I’ll see you next time, D-22.”

As Bailey turned back around and retreated down the corridor, D-22560 shrugged a little and headed for the main elevator. She couldn’t help thinking she’d been… unnecessarily nervous around Radford this whole time. As the elevator took her up to the fifth floor, she decided that was wrong of her - being quiet didn’t make him a bad person. Was it worth an apology? Was it worth that even if he’d never known?

Following Bailey’s directions, D-22560 had no trouble finding the office. She knocked a couple of times and waited.

“Come on in, D-22,” came Radford’s slightly gravelly voice from inside.

She let herself in, and found the researcher sat behind his desk, back to the door. He was sat in front of his computer yet it wasn’t on - he swivelled around in his chair, a small grin on his face as he stood. He approached, and grasped the girl’s hand in a quick but strong handshake as he shut the door behind her. She could swear she heard him lock the door.

“Glad you could make it,” he said.

“It’s fine… what did you need?”

Radford wasted no time once the door was closed. She felt his breath first, on the back of her neck as he stalked close, and then his hands around her waist, strong, and greedy as they explored what they could - one sliding up her torso to squeeze at her tits and the other dipping down beneath the band of her sweat pants.

“You don’t have to be told, do you?” the man asked in a low and lustful tone. “I’ve been going _crazy_ sitting in on all those tests. What I _need_ … is a moment alone with _you_.”

D-22560 was frozen to the spot as Radford’s curious hands left filthy trails over her skin, and a small cry escaped her as two fingers slowly circled her clit.

 _Why aren’t I fucking_ moving? _What the fuck is happening?_

The D-class grabbed hold of the man’s wrist and yanked his hand off her sex and out of her sweat pants. She tried to pull herself free of his grip but that only made him hold on tighter to her arms, painfully tight. D-22560 cried out again, louder this time, half pain and half pure terror.

“No… I don’t want this-”

Radford pulled her around to face him. “It’s happening,” he said viciously. “It’s what you do. You _fuck_ us.”

“Please-”

Her plea was silenced as the researcher’s lips crashed against her own in a sudden kiss. The hard, white bristles of his mustache scratched incessantly against her lip as he did. She resisted as best she could but his half was much too eager, tongue invading her mouth, one strong hand coming up and pulling hard on her long hair. She didn’t know what to do. All she could do was pull away from all of it, yet every time she tried, Radford grabbed her tighter.

“You answer to me,” he growled, clearly growing impatient.

He threw the girl down on his desk. His desk that was far too neat, his desk that had surely been cleared in anticipation of this.

“So you’re gonna do what I want.”

Before she could get up he’d pinned her down at the wrists and forced his way between her thighs. He ground forcefully against her sex. Then one hand came away from her wrist, callused fingers trailed across her cheek for a moment. His weathered face was fixed in a snarl of deep concentration. With her free hand D-22560 tried to pull him off, but he was too strong - nowhere near as strong as SCP-049 but still far too much so for her to even hope to fight.

It was when Radford ground into her again, groping at her tits underneath her T-shirt that D-22560 finally realised what he was doing - he was repeating the movements, the actions SCP-049 had made the first time _he’d_ fucked her on the table. This was deliberate. It was then that she realised this was going to happen, and there was nothing she could do.

Everything happened so fast - there was no time to cry (although D-22560 was far too used to this by now for _any_ of that), and no time to think. As Radford struggled the girl’s sweat pants off her legs with one violently shaking hand, still pinning her there with the other, her hands scrabbled on either side of her for something to grab on to. _Anything_.

With one leg out of her sweat pants, Radford decided that was enough. He fumbled with his own belt. She was running out of time.

The fingers of her left hand landed on something hard. She reached further over - a keyboard. It was a keyboard. That would have to do.

D-22560 grabbed the rim as surely as she could in her left hand and swung it - felt sharp resistance as the cable ripped out of the computer - and brought it as hard as she could across Radford’s face.

He grunted in pain, staggered back. He let go. As soon as he did, D-22560 sprang to her feet - her legs shook violently, weak as jelly, but the adrenaline helped her move.

For good measure she struck him a second time, earning another yelp as the corner collided with his temple.

Radford clutched the right side of his face, bleeding, as D-22560 backed away, as far away as she could get, and pulled her pants back on. Her wide, wide eyes never left his. As they stared each other down, the room deathly silent, his reddened face held a look of pure, unadulterated rage. What the fuck happened? Just earlier… he’d been so good to her. Why this?

 _How the fuck am I gonna get out?_ the girl asked herself internally. Not just out of the room, but out of everything - with nowhere to go, with only a keyboard to defend her body, and nobody to turn to, to justify her actions. Morrigan was gone - and if she wasn’t, would she even believe her? Surely… did Radford even have a _right_ to do whatever he wanted with her? She hadn’t even considered that! Should she have stayed there and taken it?

_Oh… fuck._

She was as still as a corpse, with that keyboard still raised as though she would strike again.

Those eyes, filled with loathing, were fixed on her as Radford took a few steps forward and, quite calmly on the outside, picked up a radio from the other side of his desk. He raised it to his mouth.

“Lewis?” he spoke, again far too calmly. “Can you come to my office? Bring guards. Whoever’s with you, I don’t care.”

A small pause, and while Radford’s mouth pulled into a menacing smirk, his eyes didn’t get the message. “Yeah, it’s all under control but the D-class attacked me. I’ll need you to move her somewhere… safe.”

The guards, about seven of them, D-22560 was still far too shocked to really take in the number, filed in surprisingly quickly, one after the other. They trained their firearms on the girl and she still had her keyboard raised defensively - and Radford’s temple still bled steadily.

“...I… …No- I…”

She let the weapon drop from her hand, and as the indistinguishable guards circled her, completely and utterly trapping her where she stood, her heart sank.

“What d’you want E██?” one of the guards asked without looking away. “Want us to kill ‘er?”

D-22560’s whole body turned ice cold.

“No Lewis… don’t _kill_ her,” Radford growled, stepping forwards and breaking the circle up. “Put her out of the way. Somewhere she can’t hurt anyone else.”

“Where abouts?”

The researcher deliberated for a moment, and then his cold blue eyes locked with D-22560’s brown. “She can spend some _quality time_ with 049,” he eventually said. “That overgrown crow could use some company.”

“No problem. How long?”

“Just put her away… Just… do it, will you?”

None of the guards said another word as they shoved D-22560 along - out of the cramped office and along the corridors, now so quiet.

“Please… I…” the girl babbled, half-formed explanations pouring out of her mouth and lost even to herself as the air carried them.

The journey down into the depths of the facility passed by in a blur - the next thing she knew the guards had swiped the containment chamber door, and D-22560 was thrown into the darkness inside. The guards, only following orders yet probably still enjoying the display of power, cast dark glances at her, she could feel their loathing, and then they shut the door behind.

“No…”

D-22560 scrambled to her feet and threw all her weight on the heavy door. It didn’t move, of course it didn’t.

Everything happened so fast. Even now, she hadn’t had time to cry.

As she leaned against the door, the heavy yet steady footfalls to her right stole her attention, coming closer. SCP-049 approached her, intrigue written in his eyes.

 _What the fuck do I do_ now?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So am I projecting my distrust of medical doctors onto these characters, or _am I projecting my distrust of medical doctors onto these characters?_
> 
> The world will never know.
> 
> Also the end scene here was always how things were planned to go down... but as I started writing it I kinda realised _I kinda muchly really wanted to see it fucking happen_. I'm definitely not hot for Radford but I think I'm hot for whatever the fuck he was doing. So you guys kinda nearly got that.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the longest one yet tbh. It's also the longest chapter I've ever written for a fic so far.
> 
> OK so there's kind of a playlist here. The songs, in order:
> 
> Near the beginning, when Andrea plays the radio on her tablet for a couple minutes - _Hurt You_ by The Weeknd (big shout out to EmpireForAshes for introducing me to that one, and for being the one to put it with this fic (tbh I think it fits the two perfectly)).
> 
> The song they catch the very end of when Andrea is laughing - _Little Bad Girl_ by David Guetta, Taio Cruz.
> 
> The one right after that which 049 wonders is more appropriate - _Shark_ by Oh Wonder.
> 
> The one right after that - _Nevermind_ by Dennis Lloyd.

D-22560 sat on SCP-049’s bed, and watched in silence as he dissected his cadaver on the far side of the containment chamber. She didn’t even smell the corpses any more - which was only a good thing since she would clearly be staying in that chamber for a while.

She hadn’t told him much - figuring hearing about the recent events would only upset him, and that was the _last_ thing D-22560 wanted. She knew he cared about her. All she’d said was she _thought_ she’d made Radford mad somehow, speaking out of turn perhaps when he was clearly stressed… and that she was sure he’d cool off soon, and send for her. It was a thought that seemed to satisfy the anomaly.

That was hours ago now.

The click of a metal tool on the operating table came from the other side of the room, and D-22560 squirmed uncomfortably on the bed. Perhaps she made a small noise without realising she’d even done it, because SCP-049 stopped what he was doing, and he turned around to face her.

“Is something the matter?” he asked gently.

“Uh…” the girl felt her face flush, only adding to her current discomfort. “I… uh, I really need the bathroom.”

“I see your problem.”

SCP-049 didn’t ever need to pee, of course he didn’t have a toilet in his chamber. The girl shifted again - there was nothing she could do, and it had been so long now… the situation was impossible to ignore. If she didn’t pee now, she’d surely burst.

The doctor stepped away from his table and scanned that end of the room briefly. His gaze fell upon a lone bucket in the very corner, and he moved around the table, knelt down to it. From it he took out a selection of bones - probably human - still encrusted with dark, dried fluids. He then stood and crossed the room, holding the bucket out for D-22560 to take.

“I am sorry Andrea, but this is the best I can offer,” he said.

When he hadn’t needed to do _anything_ in the first place… she thought it was ideal. “Thanks 049, it’s just fine,” she said as she stood up and took it. Nervously, she glanced at the corner to her right… towards the foot of the bed. She didn’t know how her face could possibly become redder, yet it found a way. “I just have to…”

“Of course.”

Thankfully SCP-049 turned back and returned to his work, and while D-22560 set the bucket down in the corner of the room and did what she had to do, he said nothing. She was grateful for that as she stood, pulled up her sweat pants and carried the bucket over to the sink.

She didn’t meet the doctor’s gaze as she tipped the contents down. “Sorry,” she mumbled.

He waved a dismissive hand and returned his attention to his corpse. He was carving an intricate incision into its skull with a small scalpel. “If you must stay with me, I shall see that your needs are met.”

“Well… thanks.”

D-22560 returned to the bed, and sat back against the wall. God… it was too quiet in here without the radio playing. And they only played the radio when someone was outside, observing. It was too late for that now, and so the only sounds were SCP-049’s boots on the floor as he moved about, the light clatter of the instruments he was using, and the rather visceral noises coming from his cadaver as he manipulated it. On a rare occasion, she could hear groans coming from the pipes up and around the chamber as they settled.

She reached into her small bag for her tablet. “Do you mind it when they play music in here?” she asked.

SCP-049 turned his head. “I do not,” he replied. “More often than not, it is preferable to working in silence… It is enjoyable.”

D-22560 held up her tablet. “…May I?”

“Of course you may.”

She navigated to the radio app and when it was ready, put the device aside. She leaned back against the wall as the music played, soothing yet sombre, and smiled to herself as she watched SCP-049 work.

They had a minute or two before the music stopped abruptly. D-22560 straightened up to take a look - the tablet was out of battery.

_Damn._

She scanned the room quickly - there were outlets dotted about the walls, for whatever equipment might be needed, however she didn’t have her charger. That was back in her room.

“Sorry,” she said, shrugging a little as she put the device away. “It’s dead.”

SCP-049 stopped what he was doing and turned around a little, clearly confused. “…Excuse me?”

“Oh… sorry…” That way of talking must be entirely lost on such an ancient creature… and she should know better than that by now. “My tablet… the battery ran out. No power left.”

“I see.” The doctor bowed his head a little. “Fear not… I may have a replacement lying around _somewhere_ …”

He put down his tools and knelt down to the black satchel resting against one of the table legs. The doctor rummaged about for a moment - arm descending in there far deeper than should’ve been possible - before taking out a small, handheld radio. Again he crossed the room and handed this to D-22560.

“You’re full of surprises 049… thanks,” she said, and as the anomaly once again returned to his work, D-22560 tuned into the appropriate frequency.

Nothing but white noise. “You don’t get radio signal down here, huh?”

“Evidently not,” came the low voice from the other side of the room.

She chucked the radio aside and it settled on the bed linen. “So much for that…” she said, more to herself than anything.

The D-class sighed openly. With nothing else to do except maybe play cards on the floor, she stood and approached the operating table. She might as well make herself useful.

“Need a hand?” she asked somewhat timidly.

His eyes smiled warmly as she looked up into them. “Your help is _always_ appreciated, Andrea.”

He took a small journal from his satchel and handed it to her, along with a pen. The journal cover was slightly sticky to the touch. “You may scribe.”

“Uh…” D-22560 stared down at the illegible script, hastily-written, flicking through to the first blank page. What language was this? Her eyes flicked up from the words she couldn’t read, to meet his gaze. He stared calmly, yet expectantly. “And… you’re okay with me… writing in here with… _my_ handwriting? It won’t go with the rest.”

“It is not a problem,” the doctor said, and then added, somewhat derisively, “I am _able_ to read, after all.”

“Of course. Just wanted to… just making sure I was doing the right thing.”

SCP-049 picked up something that looked an awful lot like a speculum, and waved it almost threateningly. “Now… we must continue.”

*

*

“-049, hang on. Can you… can you repeat that word?”

The doctor sighed openly, not looking up from the small portion of the corpse’s face that he was dissecting. “Which word, Andrea?”

“The first one. Ol… oh-”

“ _Olfactory_ , Andrea…” he said, clearly exasperated. “The word is olfactory. It is _not_ difficult. If you _cannot_ follow the basics of human anatomy, perhaps allowing you to scribe was a mistake.”

_Diagrams._

“Oh!” she exclaimed, practically throwing the journal down in her excitement. She hurried across the room to her own satchel and rummaged through. “You just reminded me! I brought these with me earlier but I kinda forgot them!”

She stood, drawings in her hands, and returned to SCP-049. “I have a present for you!”

As the plague doctor took the drawings from her and unfolded the top one - a painstakingly-annotated diagram of the human lymphatic system - his eyes widened impossibly. “Andrea…” he began. He held it up to the light, and inspected the other two. “You… drew these for me?”

“Uh… yeah. I thought they might be useful. …D’you like them?”

“Andrea… this is a _wonderful_ gift. I cannot begin to express my gratitude.”

For a moment the girl thought he might try - for just a second he looked like he was about to hug her - yet he kept his distance. “These will further my research… more than you can appreciate.”

His grey eyes met her brown. “Thank you.”

D-22560 smiled warmly, and the shrug of her shoulders was a little bashful. “Any time. If you have tape in…”

Her gaze dropped to the beat-up black satchel behind the anomaly. “In there… I’ll hang them up for you.”

The doctor gestured with a sweep of his hand. “If I do, it should not be hard to find.”

D-22560 hesitated. “You want me to go in there and…”

A single, slow nod of an avian head. The girl knelt down, cringing a little as she reached, ever so slowly, ever so carefully into the bag. God only knew what she’d find - she _knew_ he kept syringes in there. Her fingers passed first over something soft and malleable, yet dry - like plastic, and then immediately came to rest on… a roll of tape. It was unmistakeable.

_That was quick._

She began taping up the circle of Willis. The doctor’s tall form loomed over her from behind as she did, yet she wasn’t fazed. “It is… remarkable…” he whispered to himself as he moved around her, and studied the drawing. “Practical medicine has come _so very far_.”

“I can make more, if you want… if I ever get out of here.”

While SCP-049 bowed his head in acknowledgement, his eyes smiled. D-22560 tried to return to her task, but as she watched the plague doctor stalk around his table, she realised it was in vain. She watched him in silence as he gathered his equipment.

“Are you immortal?” she suddenly asked.

He looked up, appearing a little taken-aback as their eyes met.

“I mean… if that’s not an inappropriate question,” she added.

“It is not,” the doctor replied simply. He picked up a syringe from the table and, ever so carefully, injected something into the cadaver’s neck. “To answer your question… I cannot say. After all, I have never attempted to die. However… I suspect that I am not. The good Lord has a plan for us all… and everyone has their time. Myself included.”

D-22560 must’ve looked at least a little upset when he said that, as when he looked up to her, he continued. “Not for a very long time, however.”

When she looked up, she saw his eyes smile as he grinned. “I have far too much fight in me yet.”

D-22560 smiled weakly. Once she had been consoled, he returned his attention to his work.

“You’ve… never said,” D-22560 continued. “What you want me to call you.”

SCP-049 didn’t look up this time, however, he paused.

“Surely… you have a _name_ , right?”

There was a small pause. “I have been given many names.” The doctor continued whatever he was doing inside the cadaver’s face as he shared them. “Death… Shinigami… Doctorul Diavol… the _Terror of the Trenches_ …”

He seemed to spit out the last one, as though the words were that foul on his tongue, and D-22560 suddenly felt terrible for him. He was a doctor - he must be attracted to the sick and injured like a moth to a flame… he was probably just trying to help.

“In comparison…” his words broke the heavy silence that had fallen. “SCP-049 is the most fair name I have been given… and so it shall do.”

D-22560 moved around the table and dropped the tape back in the satchel. After that, she picked the journal up again, ready to carry on scribing. However, as the doctor spoke, she found it hard to concentrate. She was happy just to watch him working - it was quite fascinating to watch him do what he did best. And when he spoke, his voice was far too soothing. Distracting, to say the least.

Eventually he looked up, eyes scowling a little. “Andrea… if you cannot make yourself useful, you may as well stop,” he said, but gently. “If your heart is not in it, I shall work more efficiently without you.”

“It is, just… I’m getting a little tired.”

Despite herself, D-22560 caught herself glancing around the room for a clock… anything to show her what time it was. “It’s… probably getting late, right? Are you tired?”

“I do not grow tired.”

“Oh, okay. Do… you sleep? Ever?”

“I do not _need_ to sleep,” he replied. “However, I do. For at least a few hours each night - after all, it is what separates the days, and categorises the events… The breakthroughs in my research. Without it… life would stretch on, into one _unimaginably_ long day. It would become impossible to organise my mind.”

D-22560, having had a good number of sleepless nights in her comparably short life, could relate to that. “I get what you mean.”

“You are free to take my bed,” SCP-049 said, gesturing behind with a sweep of his left arm. “It will not hurt me to stay awake for _one_ night.”

“...Thanks.”

If anything, D-22560 felt even worse than before. SCP-049 was a true gentleman… and the Foundation had made him do some awful things. He didn’t deserve this fate.

She crossed the room and kicked off her boots, sunk onto the bed and settled under the meagre covers. The only light source right now was from the lamp - it was bright, but it wasn’t aimed at her. She’d have easily been able to sleep. _That_ wasn’t the problem. The D-class tried to ignore it, however after lying there for several minutes, covers wrapped around her clothed body, she realised she couldn’t.

“It’s cold in here,” she spoke to the ceiling, lying on her back. She’d never really appreciated that before - the doctor probably ran hot, given how he couldn’t take off that coat of his. He probably liked his room to run cold - and his bed linen to be meagre.

Again, SCP-049 sighed openly. He must’ve been getting sick of being taken from his research so many times. “And I suppose you would like me to _warm you up?_ ” he asked derisively.

D-22560 paused to think about it. “Not a bad idea, actually…” she decided. The girl turned onto her left and met his gaze - he wasn’t concentrating on his work any more, he was staring right at her. “…Can you? Please?”

She watched him as he stood for a while, deciding what to do. Eventually he put down his tools and ran his hands under the tap, and then he joined her, sitting on the edge of the bed. She sat up too, and leaned into him. She expected it to be at least a little awkward when he put his arms around her small form - given everything they had done - however it was anything but. It was different.

“Thanks 049.” she spoke the words into the warm, rough hide of his chest, and inhaled his scent. Unwashed, but still clean - like an animal. In turn, she held him.

Despite everything that had happened, she was enjoying this.

She didn’t know how long the two stayed there like that, but it didn’t really matter to her. As she tuned into the anomaly’s slow heartbeat against her head, D-22560 felt gloved fingers trailing down her left arm. She lifted her head to see SCP-049 tracing the tattoos on her olive skin.

“Tattoos,” he mused as his gaze travelled over them.

His curious touch travelled over a small flurry of maple leaves, and the large silhouettes of two corvids chasing each other around her arm. A majestic, detailed stingray stole the show, gliding gracefully towards D-22560’s wrist. A bold, stylised red devil with a thick outline, complete with goat legs, horns and trident, standing out from the others due to his colour and cartoonish style. And of course, the barcode she’d been given when she first arrived at the facility.

“Yeah… tattoos,” D-22560 repeated simply. “You probably get more patients these days who have a lot of them, huh?”

The plague doctor didn’t respond. Instead, he pulled away from her body, and traced the other arm, pushing the sleeve of her T-shirt up so he could see all of the realistic tarantula, crossing an intricate array of black lace on her upper arm.

“On this arm… they end much sooner,” he remarked.

“Yeah…” the girl pulled away a little from the touch of his fingers. It was almost with a sense of shame she put a hand to the lace to cover it. “Didn’t have time to get that side finished. Before… you know.”

SCP-049 nodded slowly.

”Before everything happened… and I went to prison.”

His tone was nothing but polite, and so was his question as he put it to her. “Andrea… if you do not mind me asking… what happened?”

“I…don’t really wanna talk about it. You don’t think I’m a bad person yet. …You don’t hate me yet.”

SCP-049 caught her and again held the girl close as she buried her face in his chest. “Andrea… the SCP Foundation can be cruel - we both know this - yet the staff are good people at heart. And of them all, none have proved as thoughtful… and as considerate, as you.”

His gaze lifted briefly to the drawings taped to the wall. “You do not have to share it, however… whatever dark tale it is you carry… I would never think less of you for it.”

D-22560 could feel her limbs begin to tremble as she sat up straight. There was no build-up to her story, no context, no explanations. No excuses. Just what she’d done. So she might as well begin right there. She didn’t look at him as she did.

“My friends and I were drunk,” she started. “Really drunk. I don’t… I don’t think I’d _ever_ drank that much before. We were… young, and pushing the limits. Young, and stupid. We drove home- _I_ … drove home…”

SCP-049 nodded in understanding, a gentle, warm hand taking hold of hers while D-22560 paused. “You can tell where this is going, huh?” she said. “Three of them… one of me… one car doing ninety around the suburbs- probably more than ninety. I don’t remember much. I don’t really remember T-boning the other car, but I did. I was… fine, somehow…”

D-22560 shrugged but when she continued, her throat was awfully constricted. Tears glimmered in her eyes but didn’t fall.

“I killed two of my friends that night. Alec… and Emma. Matty was okay in the end.”

Her lower lip contorted, and as she shut her eyes tight, the tears finally trailed down her face. “…The… the baby in the other car didn’t stand a _chance_...”

She couldn’t stop herself finally bursting into heavy, hysterical sobs. The girl howled, and SCP-049 hugged her close. As she bawled, he shushed her, over and over, fruitlessly. In his arms her whole body heaved with each hideous sob, and though he tried to soothe her, he still let her cry. One hand softly rubbed up and down her back.

“Andrea…”

“ _He’d-- be walking and talking-- and-- everything by now--_ ” she said it between her howls, and her voice had raised several octaves. “So look-- look me in the eye-- and tell-- me I’m not a bad person. He’d-- be in preschool if-- it wasn’t for me. _He’d be alive if it wasn’t for me--_ ”

Her open howls started anew, and the two stayed where they were together. D-22560 made a noise as if to say something further, but she wasn’t able.

“Oh, Andrea…” SCP-049 began, holding her a little tighter. “For how much you punish _yourself_ for this, you hardly needed imprisonment.”

“ _Of-- of course I needed-- prison!_ It’s my punishment! It’s all been my-- punishment! And _it’s better than I deserve!_ ”

He shushed her a few more times, like a father consoling an injured child. “Andrea… you must listen to me,” he said. “As callous as it may seem… what is done… is done. Nothing in our world may change what happened. If you do not learn to let go of this guilt… it shall only destroy the remainder of your days.”

The girl’s body still heaved. For a few minutes he said nothing.

“You must learn to let go. It does not happen overnight, Andrea, however… in time, you must move on with your own life.”

“I… I know.”

D-22560 finally straightened up, and for the first time, met the doctor’s eyes. There was so much compassion there. While they gazed at each other, a gloved hand came up, thumb wiping away the tears still wet on her face, gentle fingers caressing her jaw.

“So… that’s why I’m here…” D-22560 continued, much more calmly now. “Three counts of second-degree murder. Among other things. The parents… the parents survived but they… quite rightfully… made sure the book was thrown at me. I’m from a well-off family, and Daddy has a lot of… a lot of connections, and a lot of sway, but none of that changed anything. At least… he made sure I went to an _okay_ place. And now… I’m here.”

“I see.” He was still stroking her face with his thumb.

D-22560 tried to form a weak smile. “Thanks,” she said. “For listening. People here should listen to you more, 049… you’re way more wise than you get credit for.”

SCP-049’s eyes smiled. “Would you expect anything else?” he teased. “What kind of a doctor would I be if I did not tend to my patients’ pain - both inside _and_ out?”

Her smile widened - he was actually right. Her own hand came up to his face, resting on his hard mask - textured but smooth, and warm. He looked a little surprised at her gesture, but didn’t object.

“You’re very handsome, you know…” D-22560 said.

It was clear from how deeply his eyes smiled that he was flattered - it would seem he wasn’t immune to flattery. She hadn’t said it to flatter him though, she’d said it because it was what she thought. She wanted to kiss him, but with his anatomy… there was no way she could see that happening. The girl compromised by leaning in, and putting her lips gently to the hard curve of his beak.

“What are you doing?” he asked, softly. His hand came away from her face.

“Kissing you,” she replied simply, yet her slightly-wavering voice betrayed her nerves. “…Because I want you… I want you to fuck me.”

His grey eyes were so very wide. “After everything… _why?_ ”

“Do I have to explain why I like you?” she said, pulling away. “You’re not the person I thought you were back then. I like you, and that’s all there is to it. And besides… if they’re making us do it _anyway_ … it might as well be on our own terms. We might as well enjoy it, right?”

SCP-049 said nothing at all. He didn’t even move. D-22560’s heart sank - she’d made a total idiot out of herself. Could she be the first person in the history of the Foundation to be turned down by an SCP?

“-I mean,” she added. “Only if you can. You… you _can_ , right? Do it? Without the soap?”

“I can,” he finally replied. “But I must want to.”

They didn’t stop staring at each other. The room was deathly silent as D-22560 spoke, and her voice wavered more than ever. She dreaded the answer she knew she would receive. “ _Do_ you… want to?”

The time that passed after that was nothing short of agony, with his eyes fixed on hers and no words whatsoever passing his tongue.

_Fuck… I shouldn’t have said anything…_

“Yes.”

Her heart hammered, harder than ever, as she exhaled a ragged breath and leaned in a second time, and while one hand brushed up his rough chest, the other rested again on his face. Without being able to kiss him… she didn’t really know how to move on from here.

“Do you want me to kiss you?” he asked, those gentle eyes seeming to bore straight through her, inside her.

It was like he’d read her mind. “Is that… is that something you can do?”

“I will show you how.”

SCP-049’s fingertips trailed up from her waist, across her breasts - lightly - across her clavicle and up her neck, across her jaw. D-22560 leaned into the gentle touch, the soft leather at his fingertips, and groaned despite herself when two fingers pressed gently at her lips, and pushed inside. Her tongue met the digits, far more eagerly than she’d expected to as his other hand rested on one breast, massaging slowly. His fingers slowly pumped in and out of her mouth and met her own movements. The curve of his beak rubbed a little on her neck, up and down as he did. He’d done this before, there was _no way_ he hadn’t done this before.

He slid his fingers out, and pulled up the girl’s T-shirt. She bowed her head a little as it passed over, and he cast it aside, and next made quick work of her bra.

“That was… really nice,” D-22560 said somewhat dumbly as she followed the monster’s gaze - heavy-lidded, pupils blown - to her bare breasts. She took his strong hands in her own, and guided them there. After that he seemed to come into his own - pushing the girl down onto the bed, heavy on top of her, settling between her thighs, teasing hard nipples until heavy, wanton sighs passed her lips. Again he kissed her, and she moaned around his fingers. His hips ground into hers.

One hand trailed down the doctor’s warm body and when curious fingers grazed over a wet shaft, throbbing, already hard as steel, he stiffened. She began to pump his cock, slowly, gently, utterly hooked on his quiet, low groans of pleasure against her ear. She couldn’t get enough of this.

“Oh… _Andrea_ …”

She broke the kiss just so she could speak. “Let me… let me fuck you…” she whispered.

It was jarring, just how tenderly he touched her. It wasn’t a bone-crushing grip when he flipped their positions, he handled her as though she was a delicate, fragile cargo, which might break if he wasn’t careful. She wasn’t used to it, not from him. Some part of her had even prepared to be thrown about roughly, for him to rail her like an animal in heat - but she guessed she was about to find _that_ out for sure.

After pulling off her sweat pants and panties, she straddled him. She balanced herself but placed a gentle hand on his solid torso, her eyes following slowly as his hands travelled up her strong thighs, squeezing greedily as they reached her toned ass. As his touch continued up, along her stomach and up to her breasts, SCP-049 bucked upwards a little into her, the pointed tip of his dick rubbing deliciously against her clit. D-22560 gasped in surprise and pleasure, stiffening for only a moment before meeting his movements, over and over, revelling in the small sighs that he gave. In the quiet of the chamber, she heard each one clearly.

He rested his hands lightly on the curve of her waist as she dipped her hips, sinking onto his dick. A sharp intake of air as he breached into her tight passage - but this time it wasn’t from pleasure.

_This… hurts?_

She stiffened, yet still sunk onto him further, slowly swallowing up one inch, and then another. She didn’t understand - why did it still hurt? She _wanted_ this.

“Andrea… is something the matter?” SCP-049 breathed. Despite the slow, lustful heaving of his chest, his eyes were full of concern as he looked up at her. He must’ve been able to feel that something was wrong. “Do you not want this?”

Inside of her, his cock throbbed painfully hard. “Of course I want this…” D-22560 said, meeting his gaze. It hurt as she ground against him again, claiming another inch. “Just… I don’t think my body’s gotten the message.”

“You are far too tense,” he continued, easing her off his cock. “Perhaps _you_ should lie down.”

As D-22560 swung around, her ankle collided with something hard. Her head snapped down as something hit the solid ground - the small radio. When the music picked up, filling the containment chamber, a peal of laughter burst from her as she came to recognise the lively song, nearing its end. She still laughed as her head sunk onto the pillow underneath, and SCP-049, as he settled again between her parted thighs, cocked his head in confusion.

“What is the matter?” he again asked.

“Nothing, I’m fine… just… I can’t with this _music_ …”

“I can turn it off, if you wish.”

“It’s fine, 049… it’s nearly over, we’ll be fine after that.”

Indeed, several seconds after that came the abrupt finish.

 **“You’re listening to the SCP Foundation on-site radio** ,” the pre-recorded male voice followed it almost instantly. “ **Secure. Contain. Protect.”**

SCP-049 seemed to tune into the slow, gentle, rising piano chords that followed as the next song faded in. He raised his head a little as he listened, but still gazed down at her through half-lidded grey eyes. “Is _this_ more to your liking?”

D-22560 smiled as he positioned himself and slid inside again, thick shaft filling her up delightfully. She was far less tense, but it still hurt. Even when he hilted and eased into a gentle pace.

Maybe it always would. Her hands settled on his back, and held him close. “It’s _perfect_ ,” she whispered.

Despite where they were, and despite what had already taken place, she wouldn’t have wanted anything about this moment to change. The doctor stroked her face lovingly with his thumb as he rocked into her. It didn’t hurt any more. One of her hands lifted from their place on his back, to the back of his head, his hood, urging him closer. Again she placed her lips to the curve of his beak, she needed the sensation, she needed him. Her tongue laved over the hard, warm surface as she did - one half of a kiss. When she broke away, he kissed her in return.

In some part of her mind, details blurred and addled by pleasure, she felt like this might just work.

D-22560’s eyes flicked up to the ceiling, to the corner. She couldn’t see the camera, but she knew it was there - however, after everything, it was impossible to care who was watching them. Not now, not as the gentle beast atop her continued to caress her face, not while his eager shaft rubbed over and over against that sweet spot inside of her. Not while he lowered his head, and heavy yet measured breaths passed like music against her ear. 

It was just the two of them.

His pace was quicker, pistoning into her a little less gently, as one song faded out and another began, beautiful - a melody rising and falling, repeating, hypnotic. The music was faster, and SCP-049 fucked her faster than before, breaking away from his half of the kiss and squeezing her tits hungrily. The panting in her ear escalated, involuntary grunts and muted yet anguished moans told her that he was approaching the edge.

It was still a tender gesture when he rubbed his beak up and down her neck, and as their eyes met again, he kissed her. She met his two fingers with her tongue. They’d fucked more times than either could remember, many more times than D-22560 had been with _any_ other man, yet things had changed.

Neither registered when the song ended. Halfway through another pre-recorded message, the battery finally ran out and the only sounds in the chamber came from the two captives - their sighs of both exertion and delight, the visceral sounds of their bodies colliding as SCP-049 pounded harder and harder into the girl - and the bed springs beneath them that took it all in stride.

His dick hammered into her G-spot, the pressure from the pointed tip making her keen as he fucked her wildly.

“Oh… _fuck_ …” D-22560 whimpered. A sudden cry escaped her as he struck something particularly wonderful deep inside of her. “ _Right there!_ ”

“If that is where you want it…” he whispered in return, breathless. “That is where you shall _have it, my dear_ …”

It was all she needed to break. SCP-049 held her, still pounded into her as she thrashed. She wailed as orgasm consumed her, only vaguely aware of the eyes that bored into hers, and the roar that escaped her lover as he joined her over the edge.

“ _Andrea…!_ ”

Her walls still spasmed around him as his hips jerked sporadically, and he spilled deep inside of her. She came down from her high before he had halted, still sheathed as deep as he could possibly go.

As they gazed at one another, their heavy breaths seemed loud in the empty chamber. It was a while before D-22560 could bring herself to speak, however, she was content to let the doctor rub his beak against her neck. He seemed to like that as much as she did.

“ _Fuck_ …” the girl eventually managed, still panting a little. She arched her neck to allow him better access while she traced slow circles on his back. “ _Where_ … does an SCP learn to fuck like _that?_ ”

SCP-049 chuckled a little at that, but he didn’t stop what he was doing. “My dear, I have lived a very long time,” he said simply. “ _Immunity_ , as you call it… was much more commonplace during my salad days…”

She still traced patterns into his rough hide. “Why d’you always stay like this?” she asked. “When you’re done… it’s always a while before you pull out.”

He suddenly froze, whole body tense. “I beg of you, _please_ do not move,” he breathed.

“Why?”

“It… would be very painful.”

D-22560 recalled the way he’d shrieked when she'd tried to move out from under him. When they’d last been made to fuck.

“Really… _that sensitive?_ ”

He nodded once, slowly. “Yes.”

“Then I won’t move.”

She didn’t need to move, not right now. She was content to lie there with him, beneath him. She kissed him again, lips pressed to his beak, tongue pressed to the hard surface, as his fingers trailed up and down her arm.

Eventually - five minutes and sixteen seconds later, D-22560 guessed, SCP-049 pulled out, and as he rolled onto the bed next to her, he pulled her in close. As he spooned her in his arms, against his body - so very warm - she felt his seed ooze out of her. There was so much, like every time before this, making a wet trail on her thigh and pooling on the sheets beneath.

“You… are very beautiful, Andrea...” he murmured into her ear. She felt his smooth beak on her neck again, and she smiled widely. Oh, she loved the way he said her name. _Aah_ ndrea...

D-22560 said nothing further as she took his hand in her own - nothing more needed to be said - and she let fatigue claim her. And as the two slept, that was how they stayed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~~If you've fucked to an Oh Wonder song, you will understand~~
> 
> I'm really really sorry, I had a read through of this and the pacing doesn't time up all that well with the music. Not for me anyway. I'm a fast reader. But maybe it's different for me since I've seen this all before and don't have to "process" it.
> 
> So _Doctorul Diavol_ is the name 049 was given during his travels to Romania, and means 'the Devil Doctor'. BIG MASSIVE SHOUT OUT to my awesome co-worker for translating that.
> 
> It was gonna be 'the Demon Doctor' which in English I thought was better but said co-worker kinda laughed when I put both names to him because apparently they're almost _exactly the same_ in both languages, and that one was the most similar so I went with what I did in the end.
> 
> I plan on coming back to this eventually just to clean some stuff up because it feels kinda rushed in places. I just want to upload it for now. I had some trouble with... _foreplay_... between two characters who cannot kiss, since during my _consensual_ scenes, that is a massive, massive part of them.
> 
> Also 049 talking dirty is kinda both hilarious and bizarre.


	12. Chapter 12

When D-22560 woke, she didn’t recognise her surroundings to begin with - having been used to waking in the same stark room for some months now. The windowless chamber, now with the fluorescent lights on up above, and that one very bright light across the room, took her bleary mind by surprise. She stared, unmoving, for a few seconds before everything fell into place, and memories of the night before came back to her.

From behind, he still held her lightly but surely, a strong arm around her middle, and his body against hers kept her warm. His chest rose and fell against her back with each breath, slow and relaxed. D-22560 shifted onto her back and found SCP-049 was already awake, but dozing beside her. Maybe he’d been waiting for her to wake. His eyes opened, and as they gazed tiredly at one another, he pulled her in even closer.

“Good morning Andrea…” he whispered. He nuzzled his beak softly against her neck.

D-22560 put her free arm around him, fingers resting in the folds of his coat, and suddenly felt sick. 

What had she _done?_

A part of her wanted to recoil from the rigid, smooth touch on her neck, escape from the warmth of his embrace. But she had nowhere to go. They’d fucked last night… and slept together. It wasn’t an experiment, it was a mutual want. Pre-meditated. Consensual. _Passion_.

As quickly as it came, the nausea ebbed away. The D-class lifted her gaze to SCP-049 and despite what she’d been thinking only a second before, his presence offered that same comfort as always. A warm glow inside of her as their eyes met, and she put her lips to the curve of his beak.

 _The fuck was_ that _about?_

Perhaps a crisis of conscience as _fleeting_ as that was best ignored, she decided internally. She _had_ wanted it. And her conscious mind, more coherent by the minute, decided that she didn’t regret a thing.

“Morning…” she said groggily.

A gloved hand came away from her naked waist and the doctor stroked her cheekbone with his thumb. “How do you feel, my dear?”

She formed a dumb smile. “Good. Great. I need to pee but… apart from that I’m great.”

The girl rolled onto her back again, and stretched openly. “Can’t believe that really happened,” she said. “Last night.”

He blinked slowly. “Do you wish it had not?”

Slowly, she shook her head. “No… I wanted it. I like you. I wasn’t just saying it. Do… _you_ regret it?”

“I do not. I also… _like_ … you.”

As she buried her face again in his rough chest, SCP-049 nuzzled at her shoulder.

“Do you want to stay here with me?” he asked.

“You mean, in bed, right?”

“Yes.”

She smiled, but at the same time shrugged a little. “Not like I have anywhere else to go…” she teased.

It all came back to her after that. Just why she was in there in the first place. She got up out of bed, crossed the room, and as she grabbed the bucket and did what she had to do, she wondered, with a growing dread, when she’d be sent for. Whether she’d _ever_ be sent for. Would they leave here down here - was that something they would do?

D-22560 returned to the bed, to the doctor who waited patiently for her, and sunk back down next to him. She let him pull her in close, and for a while, that was how the two stayed. The soft tips of his fingers rubbed back and forth, absent-mindedly, against her waist, and it felt good. The way he held her, there was nothing sexual about the way they lay there together - it didn’t have to be.

“D’you remember it?” D-22560 asked softly. “D’you remember what happens when they make you…”

“When I am in the presence of the aphrodisiac?” SCP-049 finished for her.

“Yeah… that. Are you… _there_ … when you do it… or do you like… black out or something?”

“I do not ‘black out’,” he answered, hugging her body even closer, even tighter. “I remember everything. However, I am not myself - gripped by a need so intense… no conscious thought could keep me from satisfying it. There _are_ no conscious thoughts. It is like existing in a nightmare… in which I am not in control of my own actions.”

“I’m…” D-22560 didn’t know exactly what to say to that. “I’m sorry they did that to you. I’m sorry I started it.”

“You were not to know. Neither of us were.”

The fingers rubbing against her skin came away, and the doctor sat up straight. “I am sorry, my dear, but I cannot lie with you all morning.”

She sat up too. “Is everything okay? Was it something I said?”

“You have said nothing untoward,” he tried to assure her. He climbed over her and off the bed, his boots hit the hard floor. “While you may not have commitments to return to, I am, unfortunately, a very busy man, and I have _very_ important work to do. I have been away too long.”

For a while, D-22560 still lay there as she watched him work - as best she could from her position. He got back into the flow of things so quickly… it was as though he’d never been away. While she watched, she pulled the covers over her naked body. Without him there with her, she was cold, however, she was far too content in that moment to want to get up and dress.

At some point, a keycard swiped in the door, and D-22560’s head snapped up to look, and SCP-049 calmly turned as the door opened. Someone stepped in, someone wearing what looked like a hazmat suit over a tall form, discernably male. He was carrying a small bowl, and wordlessly, he set this down on the floor, and as he left, he didn’t acknowledge that D-22560 was even there. As quickly as he’d come, he was gone.

The plague doctor crossed the room and picked up the bowl, contemplating it for a moment. His avian head turned slowly to the girl still wrapped up in his bed, and he closed the distance between them.

He lowered the bowl as he held it out to her - hot, steaming oatmeal. “Eat this,” he said simply.

D-22560 sat up straight and scrambled for her T-shirt on the floor. She slipped it over her head. “I appreciate it 049…” she said. “But I can’t. It’s yours, _you_ asked for it.”

He sighed. “Andrea… I do not need to eat. You do. We do not know how long you will be staying with me, and you have not eaten since you arrived. Nothing has been left for you. You are my guest, and I will _not see you go without_.”

He’d never spoken to her quite that strictly before. and a part of her felt obligated to do as he asked. She reluctantly took the hot bowl, and thought to herself that he had a point - she _was_ his guest.

“Thank you 049,” she said, looking up at him sincerely. She saw his eyes smile a little, before he turned back to his cadaver.

She stirred the oatmeal a little as she continued to watch him, and she took the first spoonful. It was slightly sweet - laced with honey, judging by the taste of it. Maybe it was just how hungry she was, but it was the best oatmeal she’d ever had in her life, and so she ate quickly and greedily.

The small sound of ceramic meeting the hard floor carried well about the somewhat empty chamber as she set the bowl down, and the girl stood, and picked up her panties and sweat pants from the night before. After she dressed, she made her way over to the operating table, and SCP-049 turned his head to her.

“I’m ready to help,” she said simply. “It’s the least I can do.”

“Thank you Andrea.”

Her gaze dropped to the black satchel. “Want me to scribe again?”

“No. Not today. I shall work far more efficiently with an extra pair of hands.”

He handed her a bloodied scalpel and picked up a tiny clamp, and ushered her to the opposite side of the table. “I dare say I am nearly finished.”

*

*

D-22560 had no idea how long they worked - there was no clock in the containment chamber, and her tablet was dead. They worked until the moment SCP-049 stepped away from the table, and the cadaver. He was packing a mixture of human necessities - mostly small tendons and large blood vessels so mangled they were almost a paste - complete with their various accompanying fluids, into a small, clear, resealable bag.

He zipped it up and held it higher, for D-22560 to see. “These will surely be useful,” he explained, and bent down to store them in his satchel.

D-22560 couldn’t deny watching all of that made her feel a little queasy - she didn’t understand his methods, and never would. However, as she watched him straighten up, and handed him the remaining tools - washed - for him to bag up, she thought to herself, that she couldn’t judge him for that exact reason. She _didn’t_ understand what he was doing.

It was clear from SCP-049’s small, involuntary movements, and the energy in his voluntary ones, that he was more _excited_ than she’d ever seen before. He was in his element as he jerked his head up, looked across to her, his wide eyes bright with anticipation.

“Now let us see if this woman may be cured,” he said.

One gloved hand came up to the cadaver’s chest, ghosting along neat sutures he’d put there the day before. D-22560 had to admire his handiwork - he’d practiced for longer than any human being had been alive, and it showed. He placed his palm surely in the middle, fingers splayed out.

She knew the doctor could raise dead bodies, although she’d never actually seen it with her own eyes. “D’you… uh… need a hand with it?” D-22560 asked nervously.

He didn’t look up from the body, and didn’t move his hand from its chest. “I do not. However, you may want to stand back. My patients can be… temperamental… when first cured.”

He used no spell to bring the woman back to life, and there was no ritual. Nothing of the sort. Only that sure hand fixed in place, and the few silent seconds that passed.

The body sprang to life, sitting bolt upright. Her head snapped around wildly, something cracking with every violent movement, and she panted - shallow, rapid breaths, faster than should’ve been possible for a human being. She came back to life screaming - but SCP-049 had torn out her vocal cords last night, so no screams came out, only a rasp, deep and breathy. She only stopped screaming to resume panting, and alternated between the two.

Every single part of D-22560’s body seemed to turn to ice. She looked into those milky eyes - it was clear from her screams the woman was terrified yet those eyes were utterly vacant.

D-22560 jumped back and slammed against the wall as the woman threw herself off the table as best she could, and fell straight to the floor, somehow resembling a marionette with tangled strings as she tried to get up on her feet. She couldn’t. The woman scrambled about on the floor, bloodied and naked, unable to get up, or even drag herself along - SCP-049 had taken out most of the vital tendons in her limbs after all, and a couple of her bones.

D-22560 was filled with adrenaline. With terror. Her whole body shook violently, she scrabbled at the wall behind to support her but found she slid down it and onto her ass, her own limbs couldn’t hold her up. What possessed her to grab hold of the table edge and haul herself up to look over, at her, she hadn’t a clue, but she did. Her own wide eyes flicked over to him - the plague doctor had gravitated to the middle of the room, almost following the woman around as she flailed on the ground, still screaming.

He was… admiring his handiwork.

He looked over to D-22560, and she could see the elation in his eyes. “How wonderful it is…” he exclaimed, gesturing to the flailing woman with a sweep of both hands. “She is rid of the disease… we have cured her!”

He closed the distance, moving around the operating table and behind D-22560. She didn’t resist when he put his arms around her from behind, and held her lovingly against his own body. “Look at her!” he said. “Look at what we have accomplished!”

“No!” she cried, wriggling herself free of his gentle embrace. “I can’t!”

As she cowered in the very corner of the room, her legs, like jelly, again gave way and she didn’t get up this time. She teetered on the very edge of throwing up, as that perpetual rasp filled the chamber. She finally burst into tears, and clung to the wall as she cried.

D-22560 _knew_ he did this. She’d been told about it, almost right from the start, and she’d been warned what could happen while she was in this room. So why was she so fucked up about it now? After everything that had happened to her?

Somehow... she thought to herself as she sobbed, maybe it had something to do with the fact that she’d given herself _willingly_ to SCP-049 the night before. Somehow, that changed things.

He’d knelt down to her, and although her vision was blurred with tears she could see the concern in his eyes. She heard it in his voice as he spoke. “My dear… what is the matter?”

“I can’t watch!” she wailed, curling up into an even tighter mess. “It’s _awful!_ I can _still hear her trying to scream!_ ”

A hand, so gentle, placed on her arm. “Andrea, you have _nothing_ to fear from this woman… she has been cured of her disease. What could you possibly be afraid of?”

When D-22560 didn’t stop crying, he stood to his full height, and for a moment only stared down at her. The wet sounds of the reanimated corpse - SCP-049-2… that’s what the researchers always called them - struggling to move were clear amid the silence between them.

“You must allow yourself some time,” he argued gently. “You are not used to my methods… with enough time, that shall change. You simply do not understand… and you are not the first to be _wary_ of my Cure. Being at the pinnacle of medical discovery often leaves one… alienated.”

He trailed off, and the girl looked up at him. He looked sad. He looked sad to see _her_ like this, so afraid, so upset over what he’d created. In that moment, somehow D-22560 saw her own grandfather in him. He’d passed away a few years before, and before that had happened, he seemed to live in a totally different world to the rest of the family. Dementia had a way of doing that to a person. All they could do at that point was go along with the things he was saying, and doing - he was better off that way.

D-22560 quieted herself, stifling the sporadic hitching of her breath as she got to her feet. She still shook a little as she allowed herself into SCP-049’s waiting arms and returned the embrace. “I’m sorry,” she said, still not looking down at the woman who was no longer screaming, gradually losing what fight she began with. “It’s… just a shock, that’s all. I didn’t expect your Cure to be _quite_ this effective… just shocked me, that’s all.”

*

Across the room, SCP-049 sat at his table and wrote in a journal. He appeared calm. D-22560 sat on his bed, huddled against the wall as she watched the SCP-049-2 move about the room. She couldn’t move far, and she didn’t have a direction in mind, it seemed - a faint, bloody trail on the floor marked her progress until all the fluids had been wiped off. That was some time ago.

D-22560 huddled even closer to the wall, hugging her knees tight to her chest as the SCP-049-2 dragged herself towards the bed - she didn’t want that thing to touch her. A ruined and broken hand threw itself onto the covers and nails scraped the linen, but she tried in vain to pull herself up, only collapsing back onto the ground. The D-class was pressed hard against the wall the whole time the SCP-049-2 scrabbled blindly at the bed, trying to get on. She tried her hardest to ignore the muted whimpers.

Maybe an hour later the thing had given up all fight, and lay completely motionless in the middle of the chamber, face down, limbs splayed out and looking as though someone had struck her down violently. D-22560 wondered whether she was still alive… _alive_ … or whether she’d died again.

Maybe an hour after _that_ , a human being entered the chamber again - wearing a hazmat suit - maybe it was the same guy, D-22560 thought to herself, as she looked up from her playing cards, to him. The man again ignored her, instead directing his attention to SCP-049, who watched him calmly as he approached the SCP-049-2. He kept his distance, wary and still.

He pointed down at the motionless body. “You still want this?” he asked. His voice was distorted by the mask, and came out muffled, but still clear.

The doctor urged him on with a dismissive wave of his hand. “I have learned all I can from her. Thank you. Now… she may leave. She is free to live her life.”

D-22560 hadn’t noticed the clear syringe in the man’s hand. Still wary, he knelt down and injected something in the thing’s neck before dragging her away. He dragged her out the door, and it closed behind.

The girl breathed a shaky sigh of relief. At least it was gone, she thought to herself. She could start forgetting any of that ever happened. Her gaze fell to the bloody tracks on the ground, and reluctantly, she crossed the room, grabbed a wad of gauze from the black satchel (whose owner was so immersed in his notes, he seemed to ignore her completely), ran it under the tap and began to clean up the mess.

*

At some point the fluorescent lights up above shut off. D-22560 looked up into the darkness - it must be late. She still didn’t know what time it was, and the lights were her only clue. A whole day had passed, and no one had come for her.

For a few seconds, darkness blanketed them, and the girl tuned into the sounds coming from the operating table - SCP-049 getting up from his chair, the footfalls of his boots as he crossed to the other side of that table and turned on the lamp.

“...It’s getting late, huh?” D-22560 broke the silence between them, and looked up at him. “I don’t think I’m going anywhere tonight… so can I sleep in your bed again?”

“My dear… you do not need to ask.” The doctor closed his journal and bound it shut.

“Thanks…”

D-22560 gathered her cards and packed them up, and got up off the floor. She settled in the bed, and pulled up the cover. SCP-049 watched her the whole time.

“Are you cold?” he asked.

D-22560 grinned to herself, yet she closed her eyes. “Freezing.”

She heard him cross the room, and felt the bed dip a little as he climbed on. His body was a warm comfort as he pulled her close. Her smile grew wider still as she nestled her face into his chest, inhaling his scent.

 _It’s just sex_ , she thought to herself as she let the smell of him fill her head, and make her giddy. _Does it really matter what he can do?_

Maybe the more disturbing reality of SCP-049 _being_ SCP-049 didn’t have to stop them. It was just sex, after all. Good sex… with someone she cared about, who in return cared about her… and nothing more. She pulled away and put her lips to his beak, feeling his fingers stroke along her cheek. She parted her lips, laving over the smooth surface with her tongue. One half of a kiss.

SCP-049 knew what she wanted. He pulled away and kissed her in return, and as the other hand slipped under her T-shirt, massaging her breasts lovingly, she moaned needily, breaking away to pull off her clothes. As he kissed her again, the doctor ground his hips into hers - his erection rubbed against her thigh, wet and throbbing.

The D-class broke away. “I wanna try it again,” she whispered as she climbed on top, straddling his hips. “We’ve just gotta keep going, it’ll be fine.”

Two gloved fingers slowly worried her clit as she knelt over him, making her stiffen, each breath ragged with pleasure as she pushed his coat up enough to expose his cock. She braced her arms on the bed, hands on either side of his head as she sunk onto his dick.

“ _Andrea_ …” SCP-049 sighed.

It still felt like she was being ripped apart as she claimed more of his length, taking him in as far as she could, but she took it in her stride. It would be worth it in the end.

She began to grind, and the doctor met her movements, bucking up into her, guiding her with gentle hands on her hips. Soon they settled into a comfortable rhythm, and what started as pain melted into pure bliss. His half-lidded eyes were cast down, transfixed by the sight of his shaft disappearing into her tight hole, over and over. D-22560 leaned back to give him a better view.

Some part of her mind still fed her lucid thoughts as they fucked. They wouldn’t be allowed to see one another once she was let out of here… if she was _ever_ let out of here… not between tests anyway. They might as well make the most of the time they had alone.

Their pace grew quicker. If this was how they spent the time… maybe D-22560 wasn’t in such a hurry to leave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the people waiting anxiously for shit to hit the fan...
> 
> Just a little longer. It will be worth the wait.


	13. Chapter 13

The office door opened, and Dr Morrigan made her way in. Since the shutters in the quiet room were drawn, Morrigan crossed the room and opened them, letting in the morning light, and as she sat down at her desk and booted up her computer, she couldn’t have been in a better mood. Work on location had gone as smoothly as anyone could’ve hoped, and she was back early, to boot. After everything, she’d only been gone a week.

The researcher typed in her password. Working away had been… refreshing, she thought to herself as she did, but at the same time she was eager to get back to her own project - Morrigan imagined Dr Radford hadn’t _completely_ fucked things up in her absence, but still, she was keen to get on.

Once she was on the Foundation network, Morrigan opened her email. She’d been gone a week and the messages had piled up accordingly - so she started working her way through them. Several minutes in she opened up the live security hub, entered her password, navigated to SCP-049’s chamber feed, and typed her password again. Morrigan thought to herself that she’d been away too long - she’d quite missed the old guy. Catching up with him while she worked didn’t seem like a bad idea.

When the feed loaded up on her screen, Morrigan found that SCP-049 was lying in bed. At this time… the woman thought to herself. That was quite unlike him… rather lazy, now she thought about it. Normally he hardly slept at all, yet the work day had already begun, and he showed no signs of waking.

She frowned to herself as she watched him, motionless. Was he sick? He couldn’t be… SCP-049 didn’t _get_ sick. But if he wasn’t sick, she thought to herself - now ignoring her work entirely - why was he sleeping in?

Maybe it was worth paying him a visit and finding out for herself. Morrigan watched the doctor shift a little, rolling over, that was when she first saw there was something in the bed with him, something in his arms. He was holding something. A human being, Morrigan was certain of it - was he spooning an SCP-049-2? Was _that_ something he did?

The researcher zoomed in on the body, naked and still, trying to make sense of what she was seeing, and froze in horror when she saw the distinctive, familiar tattoos covering her bare arm.

“Oh… _hell_ no,” she whispered to herself, before bolting from the room.

*

*

D-22560 could feel his arm draped over her waist, and his soft fingertips lazily rubbing back and forth along her flesh. She stretched a little, and blinked against the harsh light overhead when she opened her eyes. When she rolled over to face him, SCP-049 was quietly staring at her. His sleepy eyes narrowed into a smile when she met his gaze.

“G’morning, you…” she said groggily. The D-class brought her free hand up to the doctor’s face, stroking along his hard cheek while she placed a light kiss on his beak.

He hugged her body closer to his own, and a lustful breath passed heavy over D-22560’s shoulder as she wrapped a leg around him and ground her hips forcefully against his own.

“ _Already?_ ” SCP-049 purred into her ear. “My dear, you are quite insatiable… you have hardly been awake two minutes…”

Her touch descended from his face, down his chest, his stomach, pushing aside his coat, and a wide grin spread across her face. “You said it yourself, 049… not like we have much else to do. Not until you get another patient in. Might as well put the time to good use…”

A gentle palm grazed over the doctor’s crotch, teasing, coaxing his dick out of its sheath. As her fingers stroked against his emerging manhood, wet against her skin, she kissed him. The small, satisfied sighs coming from him while she pumped his throbbing cock were clear in the quiet chamber, and her grin spread only wider.

“Besides,” she continued, her voice just a whisper as she gazed into his eyes, half-lidded. “I can’t get enough of you.”

The next thing D-22560 knew, SCP-049 was on top of her. He straddled her waist, his hard length stood to attention, wet and shining under the light. Fingers trailed over her cheek before he kissed her. The girl met his fingers with her own tongue, matching his rhythm, and then he broke away, his touch travelling down her neck, her clavicle. When he squeezed her breasts, massaging lovingly, she was the one who sighed in need.

“Fuck me, 049…” she breathed, as his fingers trailed down her stomach, further, teasing her sex. A low keen escaped her when two fingers slipped inside of her, finding that spot inside that drove her crazy, and worrying. “Please-”

At the sound of a keycard in the door, they both stopped what they were doing. Neither expected Morrigan to burst in, almost gasping for breath, her eyes wide and her forehead shining with a layer of sweat. They stared when she brandished a short cattle prod, and SCP-049 recoiled when it was aimed right between his eyes.

“Get off her!” Morrigan barked. “NOW! We’re not testing, and you’re _NOT_ authorised to be anywhere near her!”

The weapon was still trained on him wherever he moved, and he tumbled off the bed and onto his feet. He backed away, and Morrigan seemed content with that. Her head snapped to D-22560 who had already put herself between the two, covering up in the clothes that had been abandoned on the floor the night before.

“Don’t hurt him!” D-22560 said as she pulled her T-shirt over her head. She locked eyes with the researcher. “What’s going on?”

“ _What’s going on?_ ” Morrigan cried, eyes flicking back and forth between the two captives. “I want you to tell ME what’s going on!”

D-22560 looked over her shoulder. The doctor was still backed against the wall and refused to come any closer.

“Please put that down,” the girl gestured to the prod still trained on SCP-049, though from a distance. “He’s not gonna hurt anyone.”

Reluctantly, Morrigan lowered the weapon, and it hung at her side.

“I’m… -you’ll have to forgive me,” the researcher said, much more calmly now. “I assumed… if there was a test… E██ would’ve _told_ me- D-22… why are you giving me that look? What’s going on?”

D-22560’s face had fallen dramatically, but she stayed silent. Again she glanced over to SCP-049, who approached now he didn’t have a weapon pointed right at him. The girl felt his hand rest on her shoulder.

“This is not a test, Doctor,” he explained. “Andrea has been with me about five days now - we were starting to think no one would come for her at all-”

“-Don’t be mad!” D-22560 couldn’t help but interject when she saw the look on Morrigan’s face. Apparently the older woman was far too stunned for words. “Look… is there… -can we go somewhere and talk? Just the two of us? I can explain everything.”

*

*

D-22560 ravenously stuffed fries in her mouth. She’d already been taken straight to the cafeteria once Morrigan had collected her, and she’d been given a sandwich but that hadn’t lasted two minutes. So, Morrigan ordered her a bowl of fries - a large one - to take up to her office while they talked. And now the fries hardly lasted much longer.

A couple of days into her stay with SCP-049, that hunger, that black hole growing inside her had reached fever pitch and the girl started dry heaving, yet, there was nothing in her stomach so nothing came out. After that… she didn’t feel hungry any more. However, now she was presented with food for the first time in about four days, she was a little embarrassed by how quickly she ate.

Only when she finished all of them did Morrigan lean in, across the desk. Her severe stare, and that slight frown, the girl wilted a little under it all yet she knew there was nothing she could do. She wondered for a moment what the disciplinary process was for a D-class that _had_ to be kept alive.

“D-22… are you ready to tell me what’s been going on?” Morrigan asked, her voice much softer than D-22560 had been expecting.

Maybe it was her nerves, maybe it was all the food she’d eaten so fast, but D-22560’s mouth was dry. She reached for her bottle of water. “I’m really sorry,” she said. “I panicked. I didn’t stop to think… that he might be allowed to do whatever he wanted with me. I was just trying to defend myself… I hope I didn’t hurt him bad.”

The researcher’s face softened into something unreadable. “What are you talking about?”

_She really doesn’t know._

“We tested a couple days after you left,” D-22560 began, setting down her water. She didn’t meet Morrigan’s eye. “Dr Radford taught me how to do a… an EEG on 049. No, uh… sex. He said everything went well. He called me up to his office, he said he wanted to talk about the project and… when I got there he wanted to fuck me. _Tried_ to fuck me, but I fought him off… I hit him with a keyboard and he was bleeding and he said I _attacked_ him… he put me down with 049, and I was there until _you_ came back.”

Again D-22560 cowered at the look on Morrigan’s face.

“I’m really sorry!” she repeated. “I didn’t mean to hurt him! I just… I didn’t _know_ I was supposed to let him do it… if I’d known I wouldn’t have hit him! You _have_ to believe me-”

“D-22…” Morrigan cut her off simply by raising a hand. “Just… calm down.”

After that she lowered the hand, and there was a silence between them before she exhaled slowly. “You’re saying E██ forced himself on you.”

It wasn’t a question. “Mmhm…”

“Right.”

“I’m sorry, I-”

“That’s enough, D-22.” The older woman’s voice had taken on a terrifying tone. “Stop apologising. You’re not in any trouble. You did the right thing by fighting him off… and by telling me this. No matter what you might’ve assumed about your role… Dr Radford doesn’t have _any_ right to force himself on you. None of us do.”

She stood, and D-22560 saw that she was visibly shaking.

“I think it’s best I take you back to your room. Either myself or J███ will come and give you an update when we know what’s going on… and then we can get back to testing. Now this comes from me - E██ isn’t to have _any_ contact with you, so I want you to come straight to me if he does.”

“...Update? What do you mean?”

A gentle hand, still trembling, placed on her back as the girl stood and walked out the office with the researcher.

“I’m going to have a chat with E██,” Morrigan continued as they headed for the elevator. “Naturally… after what you’ve told me, I’m obligated to report this to _my_ superiors. They’ll carry out an… audit, of sorts… they’ll talk to all of us - 049 included - and review the security footage from E██’ office to assess the severity of all this. I’d do _that_ myself but I’m not cleared to access it. They might do an audit on the whole project.”

“ _Please_ don’t report this! I don’t wanna get anyone in trouble-”

“There’s a process we have to follow here. This is beyond me now, from here on out it’s all bureaucracy. If E██ has nothing to hide, he’ll come out fine. Otherwise… he’ll be disciplined appropriately. Don’t worry about the project either, it might be… _unconventional_ , but it’s squeaky clean. We’ve followed the rules, and an audit would only reiterate that.”

She hit the button on the elevator to take them both down, and as she did, she looked across at D-22560, giving her an encouraging smile, one that wasn’t returned. “In the meantime, I have a few choice words for him.”

They made their way to D-22560’s own room in silence until Morrigan bid the girl farewell, and when the door shut behind her, leaving D-22560 on her own for the first time in days, she sighed. The sound carried well in the open, quiet room. Her own head was, surprisingly, empty.

She grabbed her sketchpad and pencil, and sat down on the bed, blocking out the basic shape of an SCP-049-2, dragging itself along the floor, inch by agonising inch. As she got to work, she thought about the doctor, and wondered when she’d next be able to see him. She thought about whether she’d get to fuck him again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Shit hitting the fan" is a fairly lengthy process. Like Morrigan said, it's bureaucracy. This will take more than one chapter to untangle.


	14. Chapter 14

Dr Radford sat at his desk in a quiet office, and he leaned back in his chair, calmly poring over readouts from an EEG. He lifted one paper away and set it aside, and nearly jumped out of his own skin when the door behind him burst open and hit the wall with a loud crash.

At the sight of his co-worker, the man relaxed again. “T██, you’re back,” he said calmly.

Ignoring the hellfire in the woman’s eyes, and the rage seeping into every line of her face, he turned back to his work, however, a second later Morrigan stormed over and snatched the papers out of his hands.

“What the _FUCK_ were you thinking?” she hollered.

After her quick outburst, the office rang with a heavy silence - Morrigan actually wanted an answer to that question.

Radford rolled his eyes a little, leaning back to address her. “Is this about D-22?”

“Of course it’s about D-22!”

“All right, which part are you mad about? We can work this out.”

Morrigan was stunned. “What part?” she repeated. “WHAT PART? ALL OF IT, E██!”

The older was unfazed. “T██… calm down, _please_.”

The woman crossed to the other side of the desk and leaned in, bracing her shaking arms over it. “What… what gives you the right…” she began, her voice low and quiet, yet wavering noticeably. “To lock her in a containment chamber with a _dangerous anomaly_... with _nothing_ to live on… to force yourself on her?”

Radford snorted derisively. “So what?” he replied. “She’s just D-class.”

“THAT DOESN’T MAKE IT RIGHT, E██!”

“It’s what she’s here to do.” His words were slow and deliberate, and he indicated the healing wound on his temple. “If it makes you feel any better, I came out worse.”

“If I’d known you were gonna try something like this… I wouldn’t have invited you onto the project. This isn’t what I wanted from you. You could’ve compromised the _whole thing_. We might have to watch the _whole thing be audited_.”

Radford frowned, confused, giving Morrigan all his attention for the first time since she arrived. “You’re not _reporting_ this, are you?”

“You think I wouldn’t?” Morrigan cried, standing up straight and combing fingers through her greying hair, ruining her tight bun. “It’s already done! I had to do the right thing! There were _WITNESSES!_ ”

She jerked her head up violently to the corner of the room. “It’s all saved to the network! Come October, come the audit… those recordings might get checked over anyway, and then _I’d_ be implicated for covering this up! What made you think you could get _away with this?_ What were you _thinking?_ ”

The man’s casual demeanour had vanished, and he was left frozen in fear. “I can’t believe you… Can’t believe you’d do this to me, T██… you actually care more about _those two_ than me? We’re gonna have to terminate _her_ when the project ends… you know this. You and me, we go way back-”

“You’re not working on my project any more,” Morrigan cut him off fiercely. “No matter what comes of all this… you’re off the project. You’re to have _no_ contact with D-22. _Or_ 049.”

Morrigan stalked across the office, and Radford said nothing, only watching her as she approached the door. The younger felt a chill creep up her spine as she wondered to herself whether he could’ve been abusing _SCP-049_ when no one was looking. Would that come as a surprise? She didn’t know _what_ to think any more. So she made a point to bring the matter up next time she interviewed the anomaly.

 _No_ , she thought to herself. _I’ll go now. It doesn’t feel right to drug him and chain him up for that._

She stopped in her tracks.

“You’ll get a warning, at best, I know that,” she said darkly to her co-worker. “Like you said, she’s only D-class. But you deserve worse. It makes me sick to think you’ll get away with this.”

She cast her gaze across to him, eyes alight with anger.

“And for the record, yes, I _do_ care more about them than I do you.”

After that, the woman left the room, making a left turn and heading towards the elevator. She couldn’t help but think that was all a waste of her time - in her anger so much had been left unsaid, and _he_ had nothing to say, he didn’t care. He didn’t care now, and it was obvious he never would. She should’ve seen it coming.

Why _didn’t_ she see it coming? It was unavoidable… a _physiological_ reaction to the sights and sounds, of what they were all seeing and hearing when they tested. More so the sounds in Bailey’s case, she thought to herself in hindsight, since he spent as much time as he could trying not to _look_ at what was happening in that containment chamber. However, he always tended to carry himself with a sense of shame over how his body reacted.

It was unavoidable. The eyes saw sex, and they took it to the brain. Despite some other part of it knowing that what it was receiving wasn’t right, the brain took that to the body. Her own body reacted while they tested, it would be lying to pretend otherwise - although in her case it was much easier to hide. A part of their project was coming to terms with that, and finding some acceptance. Knowing it was out of their control. That was why she didn’t bring it up with the men while they worked together, and she didn’t poke fun. But with the benefit of hindsight… Radford had definitely been far more into it than he should’ve been.

She should’ve seen this coming.

*

The door closed behind Morrigan as she stood in the containment chamber. SCP-049 froze when she came in, and his eyes followed her wherever she moved, despite the fact that she was completely unarmed. For a while there was a silence between them, uncomfortable, broken only by the settling of the pipes around the walls.

“Hello, 049,” she eventually said.

“Good afternoon, Doctor,” SCP-049 replied politely.

That silence returned. Her hazel eyes cast down to the floor.

There was no right way to say any of it. She might as well just get started. “I came to apologise for my behaviour earlier. It was... there was no excuse for what I did, and I shouldn’t have shouted at you.”

The plague doctor nodded slowly, getting up from his chair and approaching, yet keeping a safe distance.

“Can you forgive me?” she asked.

“There is nothing for me to forgive,” he said in a soft voice. “You saw something you did not understand - to walk in on what was happening… your reaction was only natural.”

Morrigan leaned back against the wall, and her dark eyebrows knitted into a small frown. “What _did_ I walk in on, anyway?” she asked. She jerked her thumb up to the corner of the room, to the camera. “I had a look at the live feed, saw you and D-22 spooning. Why was she naked in your bed?”

He said nothing, so she continued. “When I got here… from where I was standing it looked like you were about to have sex.”

She didn’t expect the anomaly to nod his hooded head, again, knowingly, and his grey eyes narrowed into a smile. “Had you not interrupted…” he quipped.

“What’s going on? With her?”

He seemed to be trying to find the right words. “Andrea and myself have taken to knowing one another… _willingly_.”

“How did _that_ start? Did it start when she was in here, with you?”

“Yes. She was the one to suggest it might be better to know one another on our own terms, and I felt that she was correct. She _was_ correct. I enjoyed it… and so did Andrea. However…”

The anomaly began to pace along the length of his chamber. “It is difficult to explain what exactly you saw, Doctor. I care about Andrea. As a colleague? No. Perhaps more than that.”

“As… a girlfriend?” Morrigan suggested.

For a moment SCP-049 only stared at her blankly.

“A lover, then?” the researcher continued.

The anomaly turned away and resumed pacing. “Yes… as a _lover_. That is far more appropriate.”

Suddenly he stopped in his tracks, and turned back to the woman. “Would the Foundation authorise me taking a lover?”

Again Morrigan looked away, sadly, and let out a small sigh. She didn’t have the heart to say it, after everything that had happened over the last week, but she had no choice. If even just a little bit, her superiors were going to look at her project. Radford was a dark stain on her otherwise-clean project… and it had to stay that way. For the time being, at least.

“I’m sorry, 049,” she began, still not looking at him. “I can’t authorise her as a… _regular visitor_. We’re not allowed to authorise visitors for _any_ anomalies. It’s… happened in the past, but more often than that, those kinds of requests are denied. And in light of what’s happened… I have to follow the rules.”

She shifted a little towards the door, a part of her on guard, ready for SCP-049 to lash out. However, he only turned his head away.

“I understand. Perhaps it is better that way… I do not need to be distracted further from my research.”

Morrigan smiled a little to herself. Clearly he still had priorities.

“Am I wrong to assume, we shall still be tested together?” he asked.

“Not at all. We’ve got things to figure out, up above, but when testing resumes you’ll see her again.”

She thought to herself, now the two captives were on such _good terms_ , they probably wouldn’t even need to use the aphrodisiac any more.

“I came here to ask you something,” she continued. “I’ve just had a rather… _difficult_ conversation with D-22… and I wanted to get your version of events.”

When SCP-049 looked her way, again stood still, she knew she had his full attention.

“It’s about Doctor Radford. And I need you to be honest with me, no matter what I ask you. Whatever you have to say, I can assure you, you’re not in any trouble. I just need the truth.”

“Please, ask it.”

“Has Doctor Radford ever done anything…” she didn’t quite know how to say it, and again fiddled with her now-messy bun. “ _Out of character?_ ”

“I do not understand.”

“Has… he ever hurt you? If there was no way you could possibly justify it as a test, if it seemed like it was for his own amusement - has he ever hurt you? Has he ever done anything that made you… uncomfortable, or just didn’t seem professional? Has he ever done anything… sexual, in nature?”

SCP-049 visibly reeled at the line of questioning, his eyes wide in surprise. “I do not know what to tell you,” he answered. “Doctor Radford has done nothing of the sort, not to me. He has always been a valued colleague. What has prompted this?”

He didn’t need to know, not right now. “Don’t worry about it, I just had to ask,” Morrigan brushed off his own concerns.

Her gaze lifted to the drawings taped to the left wall, and she approached, studying them curiously. “What are these? Did D-22 make these? They look like her work.”

SCP-049 clapped his hands together. He spoke excitedly, his eyes smiling deeply as he did. “Oh, yes, they were a gift,” he replied. “Are they not beautiful?”

“Yes, that girl’s talented,” Morrigan murmured, scanning over the annotations. “She’s… put a lot of work into these.”

The anomaly approached, and stood beside the researcher as they looked at them.

“Can you tell me what they are?” Morrigan asked.

SCP-049 started with the leftmost and gestured with a sweep of his hand. "This details circulation within the brain," he answered. "The _Circle of Willis_... with this, Andrea has taught me something I did not know. However..."

He now moved across to the other two. “For the life of me, I cannot seem to remember what _these_ drawings represent.”

He put out a gloved hand to the diagram on the right, tracing the branches of the lymphatic system. “This is _clearly_ the shape of a human being.” He leaned in closer, and his eyes narrowed into a deep frown. “The _lymphatic system_ … I should _remember_ this.”

“Didn’t D-22 tell you what they were? When she gave them to you?”

“She did. However, I do not remember the details.”

His fingers came away from the paper. “How queer,” he mused, before turning and walking away. He resumed pacing.

The researcher watched him for a moment, before returning her attention to the drawings.

“I’m sorry,” she began. “But I’m gonna have to confiscate them.”

SCP-049 stopped again. Morrigan’s heart sank at the look of disappointment in his eyes.

“While you’re in Foundation custody… you’re not authorised to keep material of… this nature. It’s considered a luxury.”

“I cannot argue with the rules.” As compliant as he was, he sounded as crestfallen as he looked. “Do not destroy them. _Please_ , do not destroy them. They were a gift.”

Again she looked at them. “I won’t. Don’t worry. They can stay with D-22, I bet she’ll take care of them.”

A quiet sigh passed her lips. “I really am sorry about this,” she repeated, as she pulled gently at the tape on the walls, and took the drawings down.


	15. Chapter 15

Bailey stared the D-class down with a serious yet sad gaze from across the table. “I’m sorry,” he said somewhat awkwardly. “About what happened. I didn’t think E██ was- I didn’t know. He didn’t say anything. He- he had no right.”

D-22560 shrugged a little. “It’s okay,” she said. “I’m fine, I’m… here now. Can we just get on with it please?”

“Yeah, sure…” the RA leaned forwards, tapped at his tablet screen, and brought up his notes. “There’s a lot we need to cover today. First thing’s first… the investigation is happening. As we speak, actually. We’ve… all been interviewed. No one more so than Doctor Radford-”

“But you haven’t done anything wrong.”

The D-class had already been interviewed, too. It was… invasive, and those faceless, impersonal men hadn’t just grilled her about what happened in Radford’s office, they’d questioned her for what felt like hours, about the whole project. Coming out of _that_ interview, she was particularly exhausted. She couldn’t imagine how much worse it must’ve been for the researchers.

“The higher-ups don’t know that. They have to do it… and I was glad to help. Human Resources have looked at the security feed, and while _we’re_ not allowed to see it, they _were_ able to tell us there’s no doubt you were telling the truth.”

D-22560 broke away from his gaze, in shame, and stared sadly at the grey floor.

“They’re happy with the rest of us, and the project… but they want to look at Doctor Radford’s activity. In our project, and ones he’s been a part of in the past. I don’t know what K██ meant but he said you get… patterns, with this kind of thing. Things that need to be looked at.”

“Okay.”

“And… that’s it, for now. Doctor Radford’s been written up, but no matter what happens, he’s not involved in the SCP-049 project any more. You won’t see him again.”

D-22560 shrugged, leaving Bailey without a real response to any of that. He composed himself by consulting his notes a second time.

“The next thing… is the drawings you gave to SCP-049.”

The girl finally looked up at him. “Yeah? What about them?”

“Doctor Morrigan had to confiscate them.”

Her face fell. “ _Why?_ ”

Bailey’s kind face was set into something vaguely resembling a dark scowl, maybe the most serious she’d ever seen him. “You shouldn’t have given them to h- …it.”

“Why though? I’m sorry I broke the rules, but… what’s so bad about a few drawings?”

The assistant indeed sounded far more stern than D-22560 had heard from him before. Still soft, and warm, but enough to add a clear warning to his words. “They’re medical diagrams,” he explained. “SCP-049 is dangerous _enough_ on humourism and miasma alone. If it gained proven medical knowledge from _this century_ , or even the last… it’s not something we even want to imagine.”

D-22560 said nothing, her face so hot she could feel the blood pounding in her temples. Bailey was right. That thought hadn’t even crossed her mind.

“So it’s fortunate, with that in mind,” Bailey continued. “That SCP-049 can only remember the content of _one_ of the drawings.”

“What do you mean?”

“It looks like it's having memory trouble. It was interviewed… it recalled being _gifted_ diagrams, by you. But it can’t remember all the content. SCP-049 itself doesn’t seem worried about this, but… naturally, it’s something we want to look into. With your help. SCP-049 is completely on board with all of it.”

“Okay… what do you wanna do?”

“We want you to do some simple recall tests with it, in its containment chamber. Recall tests are the best starting point to look at what’s happening to its memory.”

Again, D-22560 fell silent. She remembered vividly what the doctor had said to her, in his chamber. That he probably wouldn’t live forever. Was he getting old? Was this the first sign? She was surprised by the chill that crept up her spine as she wondered how much longer they had… until he was no longer around.

“Someone will come for you when we’re ready to start this,” Bailey’s kind voice interrupted her thoughts and brought her back to the task at hand. “Remember… there won’t be any testing until the investigation is over.”

The girl nodded quickly.

Bailey’s black eyes flicked down to his notes. “Okay…”

D-22560 couldn’t help but notice the blush that was creeping up his face, and she had a feeling she knew what he was about to ask. He cleared his throat uncomfortably.

“Doctor Morrigan tells me that yourself and SCP-049 have started… um, having sex, of your own accord. While you were locked in its containment chamber.”

She was right after all. “Yeah, that’s right,” she replied.

Bailey cleared his throat again. “I have some questions about that. We have SCP-049’s version of events but we want to hear yours. You weren’t part of any testing so… _why_ did this happen?”

D-22560 shrugged, and tried to push her overgrown bangs out of her eyes - to no avail. “We’re being made to do it anyway. It doesn’t… it doesn’t have to be a _bad_ experience for _either_ of us, _especially_ since we know each other’s bodies kinda well by now… and we like each other’s company. We’ve gotten close. It just… made sense. You know what I mean?”

“Um…”

D-22560 waved her hands dismissively, and shrugged again. “I dunno, forget I said that.”

Bailey was blushing so hard, it was a surprise he hadn’t yet passed out. “How many times did it happen?”

The D-class hesitated, partly because she needed a moment to remember, but mostly because the words just wouldn’t come out her mouth. She didn’t want to talk about this with Bailey, of all people. She didn’t really want to talk about it with anyone.

“D-22560, you should tell me honestly,” the RA urged her. “It will… mean we don’t have to review the security feed and count for ourselves.”

“Ten. Maybe.” At the look on Bailey’s face she added heatedly, “I didn’t have anything _else_ to do in there, Doctor!”

A small smile pulled at the corners of his mouth, and when D-22560 grinned in return, they both found they were chuckling. D-22560 fruitlessly brushed her bangs out of her eyes.

Bailey still grinned widely as he quipped, “I thought you didn’t _have_ feelings for SCP-049.”

At that, D-22560 pulled a face, everything about the small moment they’d shared had vanished, things had returned to normal. “I care about him,” she said darkly. “I like him. He’s a good person underneath the… the killing. You don’t _have_ to have feelings for someone to want to fuck them. Besides, you could say I’ve gotten used to it. And _that’s_ not our fault.”

Evidently, Bailey was humbled by this, and he didn’t press further. Since he said nothing, the two sat quietly for a while, with the sounds of footsteps and voices outside, intermittent, the only thing that kept them from sitting in complete silence.

D-22560 was the one to break it. “He can’t get me pregnant.”

The RA sat up straighter. “What makes you think that?” he asked.

“You guys stopped taking my blood,” she replied with the tiniest shrug of her shoulders. “You used to take it every week. Now it’s just when you _need_ it. My blood. For your project. You know you don’t have to keep testing it… right?”

The assistant was a little taken aback by that, almost like he hadn’t expected her to figure it out on her own. “Yes… you’re right. We’ve been looking into that on our end. SCP-049 isn’t compatible with humans.”

She glared up at him. “Someone should’ve told me,” she said bitterly.

“You’re right, we should have told you.”

“You think _I_ haven’t been scared shitless? Not knowing _what_ could happen?”

“If it makes you feel any better… we haven’t had a definitive answer for very long.”

D-22560’s face softened a little after that. “Can I see him again?”

“You’ll see it when we start the recall tests.”

Her eyes flashed fiercely. “You know what I mean, Doctor.”

“Yes, I do. And… the answer is no. T██ was very clear on that. And if you’re thinking you might be allowed to… have sex, with SCP-049, during that time… it’s best to not get your hopes up. Nothing’s changed - if testing calls for it, you’ll still have to do it. Otherwise, SCP objects aren’t permitted any luxuries.”

D-22560 thought to herself, that that made sense. They hadn’t even given him a _proper name_. They didn’t give him much at all - but that also made sense given he didn’t need all that much to survive on. “So the SCP Foundation thinks sex is a _luxury?_ ” she asked.

“Yes.”

A low buzz filled the room, and Bailey leaned back, and reached into the pocket of his chinos, bringing out his phone. He glanced at the screen quickly, and then back to D-22560.

“Please excuse me,” he said, standing up, turning away, and answering the call.

“Hello T██?” he spoke.

He took a couple more steps until he was somewhere right in between the table and the door, and D-22560 watched him as he paced slowly around the room while he listened.

“Um… what’s going on?” he asked. “Okay, I’m coming up now. Just need to finish the interview. I’ll be as quick as I can.”

Bailey hung up, and when he returned to the table, his face was ashen. He picked up his tablet.

“I’m very sorry, D-22560, but the interview is terminated.”

He tapped the screen, knelt down, and stowed the tablet back in his satchel. As he stood up, he slung it over his shoulder. “Something’s come up, and it’s urgent. I’ll need you to make your own way back.”

D-22560 stood. She had nothing to take with her, because she’d brought nothing along. “That’s okay.”

Bailey hung around long enough to escort the D-class out of the grey room, and once the door was closed he sprinted away, down the corridor and out of sight. D-22560 stared after him, down the empty stretch of the facility for a few seconds after he was gone, wondering to herself what _that_ was all about.

Quickly she shrugged and put all those thoughts aside, and made in the opposite direction. She made for the cafeteria, she wanted a soda, but on the way, she paused as the familiar path branched off to the left. D-22560 stared down the inconspicuous corridor, and to the double doors at the very end which led to the containment zones. For a moment she lingered in the middle of the junction, just staring, and those who passed by shot her filthy looks. Accusing looks. But she couldn’t get in.

She missed SCP-049. That much was undeniable.

Eventually she turned away, and continued on her path. Now that Morrigan was back, and she herself was sleeping in her own room again, things had more or less returned to normal. But it was impossible to deny that some things had changed, and none of it would ever be the same again.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK, this one was meant to be longer, including the content of the next chapter, but I have a decent amount of research to do for the next part (I only took 1 psych class at university and that was a long time ago so my own memory is lacking), so it's pretty short, but... I really wanted to wrap this up sooner rather than later.

“It’s nothing personal,” the suited man said, fixing Bailey with a sincere stare as the assistant handed him a heavy laptop in a padded black bag. “Really. It’s something we have to do. In light of what we found on E██’ computer.”

Bailey dismissed the explanations with a wave of his hand. “Oh, don’t worry, K██, I understand completely. I’m happy to help.”

K██ tucked the bag under one arm, nodding in agreement. “It’s not the first time,” he continued. “He ruined it for both of you - we can’t afford to take any chances with Foundation data. Especially not data of _that_ nature.”

As he nodded in return, absently, Bailey couldn’t help but grimace as he thought about it. He didn’t blame them for doing this. Not one bit. There was a reason Foundation staff were only permitted to write up and save sensitive files to their _company_ tablets and computers, and it was the same reason they were to never take those devices off-site.

He could see it clearly in his own head. All it would’ve taken was someone breaking into Dr Radford’s own home (Site Nineteen, and its network, was heavily guarded, and Dr Radford’s home was not). Looking for valuables, they’d probably take his personal computer in the hope of getting his bank details, or something like that. While they were at it, maybe they’d have a look and see what kind of _deviant porn_ the guy was downloading… just for kicks. In amongst all of it, they would’ve found almost all of the video footage from testing.

Anybody watching the footage would think they were _very_ convincing fakes, and that was a somewhat reassuring thought. A hoax. However, hoax or not, God knows how the Foundation would’ve been able to control it from there - if those videos were uploaded to every major porn site that would host them, for all the world to see.

Only then did Bailey realise his face was contorted into an almost-painful scowl, and he relaxed. That hadn’t happened. Maybe this was what K██ meant when he talked about ‘patterns’, it _must_ have been - it seemed he and his team had seen it coming.

“Yes… we’re better off this way,” Bailey eventually contributed. His gaze fell to the laptop, his own personal laptop, secured under the older man’s arm. “Damage control.”

He looked up, into his eyes. “Um… when might I expect to have it back? I, um…”

He grinned bashfully. “I’m going to miss coming home and playing WoW. I might have to get a hobby… Might have to start working out or something.”

K██ chuckled along with him. “You’ll have it back next week, hang in there J███.”

“What happens to E██?” came Morrigan’s sharp voice from the other side of the small office. She’d stayed unusually quiet the whole time. “Given the severity of what he’s done?”

The auditor’s face grew so dark at that, and he turned to face her. “Given E██’ contributions to the Foundation, over the years… he’d actually have _gotten away_ with the rape of your D-class. Maybe if he’d actually gone through with it, too. He’d probably be looking at a mandatory transfer to another site. But that doesn’t matter now.”

“ _Why?_ " Morrigan asked. “ _Why_ doesn’t that matter? What’s going to _happen_ to him?”

Her tone grew more and more fearful as the words came out. Bailey could see the fear seeping into her features, into the lines of her face, and he knew exactly why. His heart sunk to his very feet and then some - he himself was still so new to the SCP Foundation, the most fundamental, integral rules of conduct were still drilled into him far too freshly to have forgotten. He knew as well as her, the consequences of such a massive, selfish breach of Foundation security.

K██ approached her, his voice appropriately soft for his words. “I’m very sorry to have to tell you this,” he continued. “It’s zero tolerance for all of us. I… know he’s a good friend to you, but these are rules we all have to follow. There’s no reason E██ should be punished less severely than anyone else for the same crime. He’s going to be terminated.”

The researcher shook visibly. From the way she clutched at the desk in front of her, it was clear her legs threatened to give way. “Right,” she said, almost too curtly. “Okay.”

Bailey could see she was struggling to keep it together. He stepped forwards and ushered the older man away. “Thanks again for your time, K██,” he said politely, but with an air of finality. “We should take a moment and talk this over… just us two. Please send us an e-mail… tell us wh- …what’s happening.”

Before he opened the door, K██ turned his head back and nodded once, sharply. “I’ll be in touch,” he said, his voice equally as gentle, and then he left.

Bailey closed the door, turned back, and approached his superior. He didn’t know what to say, but apparently he didn’t need to since Morrigan threw herself, rather unprofessionally, onto Bailey’s tall form, into his arms. Still at a loss for encouraging words, supportive words, the man instead opted to just hold her. It seemed that was all she really needed right now anyway.

She cried, but she didn’t openly sob. Morrigan cried quietly, chest and shoulders shuddering with each sharp, ragged breath - she was still making such a huge effort to hold it together. Her arms hung loosely around her assistant’s neck. He didn’t feel comfortable, not one bit, in fact he felt quite anxious - the interaction was like an electric charge running along every inch of his skin, and he felt sweat pricking at his temples. But still, he held her close.

“I’m sorry J███…” she managed to get it out between sporadic breaths, and her voice cracked a little. “…Should be keeping it together.”

Bailey shook his head a little. “It’s okay, I… it’s understandable. You and E██ go back quite a way. I didn’t know him all that well. And… despite what he did, I’m gonna miss him too.”

Another ragged breath passed onto his shirt, warming the skin underneath. “Don’t understand it,” she said. “I just don’t… understand any of it."

Her slow sigh was more measured. “…Didn’t think he had it in him.”


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I was a little rash when it came to researching for this, and now I'm doing the research for the content of the next chapter I've come to learn I was wrong about at least one thing I'd written here, so it's been edited accordingly. I'm sorry. I want this to be a realistic and plausible story and I do aim to correct mistakes that I make where the medical facts are concerned, and I do make a point to research everything I write here.

As soon as D-22560 was let in the observation room, she noticed the researchers were unusually quiet. Something in the way Bailey moved as he swiped his keycard in the door to let them both in, and something in the way Dr Morrigan stared disinterestedly at her tablet. Her gaze lifted to the D-class as she entered, but there was none of her usual enthusiasm. The whole room felt heavy with a pressure that she couldn’t place.

D-22560 glanced across the wide desk - Radford wasn’t there. Morrigan hadn’t been lying. Instead there sat a blond woman - older than her but definitely younger than Morrigan - wearing a blazer instead of a lab coat. She didn’t look away from her papers when the girl came in. She wondered whether this woman was Radford’s replacement. The man hadn’t been present for _every_ test, but his presence was something she’d grown used to over the months.

“C’mere, D-22.”

Morrigan’s voice brought her back to reality, and she approached. She held out her left hand, and she was scanned. She wasn’t introduced to the other woman. The guards fell back, resting against the wall, relaxed but still alert. The older woman leaned in.

“I think it’s only fair you get told what’s going on,” she said, her voice but a growl as she whispered. “You’re part of the team, after all.”

D-22560 was surprised at that last remark. “You mean, with Doctor Radford, right?”

“Yes.”

The researcher calmed herself for a moment before continuing. “It’s… it was more than just forcing himself on you. What he did. A pretty serious breach of Foundation security. He didn’t tell anyone.”

“What did he do? Are you allowed to tell me?”

Morrigan jerked her head in the direction of the wide window - the mirror. “We record every test. So we can review the details later, if need be. You know this.”

The girl’s dark eyebrows knitted into a small frown. “Uh huh…”

“I don’t see any harm in telling you this now. …E██ copied _most_ of those video files to his home computer for… personal use.”

D-22560 knew exactly what she meant. Learning that, she suddenly felt kind of sick - how was it even possible to feel even _more_ violated by this? For a long time now she’d assumed it wasn’t, but, time and time again, kept being proven very wrong about that. A part of her wished Morrigan hadn’t said anything.

“It’s one of the most serious offences Foundation personnel can commit,” Morrigan continued, her features growing ever so dark. “The consequences could’ve been… well, disastrous for our organisation, if this hadn’t been found. And the consequences for _him_ are… equally severe. He’ll be terminated.”

The D-class’ heart sank. This was her fault. “They _fired_ him?” she gasped.

Morrigan’s hazel eyes darted away, and a small sigh, frustrated, passed her lips. The researcher had never looked so grim. “Guess again. In this case, that’s… not what termination means.”

_Fuck. Oh, fuck._

Now she really was about to hurl. She lurched as though she would, and the researcher put a hand on her shoulder to steady her. Her heart pounded somewhere in her throat.

“No…” D-22560 breathed. “Don’t let them do it.”

“It’s beyond all of us, D-22. I’m… sorry.”

“But if they kill him… it’s my fault! I don’t wanna kill another person! I shouldn’t have said anything!”

“He had to be found out sooner or later. For… the good of the Foundation. Now c’mon, we’ve got to start this.”

Morrigan eased the D-class over to the containment chamber door, where Bailey was waiting. He held out a plastic slip, filled with papers.

“These are your instructions,” he said. “Do everything in the order they’re in here… and we’ll help fill in the blanks.”

D-22560 still felt like she would puke as she looked up at him, and took them. She heard a keycard swipe in the door. “Thanks.”

As soon as the door opened, she saw him. SCP-049 sat calmly, at a fold-out table that had been set up in the very middle of the chamber. His head turned at the movement, at the sounds, and when he caught sight of her, the anomaly sprung to his feet with an agility nobody there expected.

Everything she’d been told out in the observation room, everything she’d felt, seemed to have stayed out there, and it was replaced by a joy that welled up in her chest, threatening to burst. She hurried over, closing the distance quickly. D-22560 threw herself into the doctor’s arms and he caught her gladly, holding her tight.

How long had it been? Probably just a few weeks, she thought, as she buried her face in the folds of his coat and inhaled the scent of him - long enough to forget the way he smelled, strange and intoxicating. It felt far too long to her.

They held each other for a while, in front of an audience which was far too stunned to do anything but let them. D-22560, still wrapped tight in SCP-049’s arms, leaned her head up and placed a gentle kiss on his hard beak.

“I missed you, my dear,” the doctor whispered.

She let him rub his beak up and down her neck. “I missed you too… it’s been too long.”

“They would not allow me to see you,” his grey eyes lifted briefly to the researchers - who were watching the exchange now less in surprise, and more out of fascination - then dropped back to her. “I asked.”

“So did I.”

“Okay, break it up!” Morrigan called out from the doorway. “We’ve got a lot of work to do!”

As she shut the door, leaving the two captives alone in that chamber, they reluctantly eased off one another, and without saying anything, they took their seats at either end of the table.

It was Bailey’s voice that came over the intercom. “D-22…” he said. “Could you please start at the beginning… of those instructions. Your colleagues will be coming in to set things up while you’re at it.”

The girl nodded a couple of times to the mirror, and then laid the papers out on the table. Her brown eyes darted about as she scanned the first page.

“Okay,” she finally said, looking up to SCP-049, who waited patiently with both hands rested on the table. “Looks pretty simple. I’m gonna read out some words. And I need you to write them down…”

The D-class rifled through the pages until she came to a couple of blank ones. “Uh… you got a pen?”

SCP-049 gestured across the chamber, to his operating table, and D-22560’s gaze fell to the black satchel resting against the metal leg. She stood, crossed the room and knelt down to it, and reached in - as carefully as ever - and grabbed hold of something that _felt_ like a writing tool. As she returned to the new table, she saw more D-class file in. Three of them - two men, and one woman, all wearing the same orange jumpsuits. Behind D-22560, they were doing something over on the operating table. She didn’t let them distract her - she handed both pen and pages to the doctor.

“Okay… I need you to write down as many words as you can remember, after I say them. Okay?”

SCP-049 bowed his head politely, and D-22560 got to work. As she recited the arbitrary list of objects, the D-class behind her crossed the chamber and left, and the two were once again alone. After that, not sure how long they were supposed to wait, the two looked expectantly towards the mirror.

“Keep going please,” came Bailey’s voice from the corner of the room. “SCP-049, please write down what you can remember.”

The pen clicked over and over against the page as the doctor did as instructed, and D-22560’s face fell dramatically when he passed the paper back to her. She stared at the script, scrawled in large… were they even letters? No one at the Foundation had been able to translate this, she knew that much. There was no way _she_ could.

“Uh…” She bit her lip as she looked up into his expectant eyes. “Can you write in English? We can’t read this. I’m sorry.”

He looked a little surprised as he held out his hand and took it back. “Of course. You will have to forgive me.”

After copying the words down in a language more familiar to the team, he gave it back. Before sliding this under the others, the girl looked it over for a moment and remarked internally that, in _his_ handwriting, it was only a little more legible in English.

She smiled a weak smile, and again scanned her instructions. “Great! We’ve gotta use what’s been set up for us now…”

She stood, and SCP-049 followed suit. They approached the operating table - a white sheet was draped over it, lumps of various shapes and sizes told them there was something, or several things under there. D-22560’s hand found its way to the doctor’s, and he didn’t resist. For just a moment, their fingers entwined.

She let go. They had work to do. “Same as before,” she continued. “We’ll take this off, and you memorise as much as you can. I cover it up, and you write them down. In English. Okay?”

“Yes.” SCP-049 readied pen and paper.

D-22560 pulled off the cover and they stood in silence. Within the avian mask, the doctor’s eyes roved, pupils darting back and forth over the small items. There was a tuning fork, a few childrens’ toys, and what looked like bathroom fixtures, among other things. Was he expected to remember _all_ of these? She certainly couldn’t.

“D-22, please replace the cover,” Bailey’s voice rang out.

She did as she was told, and the anomaly again began to write. He gave this page back to her when he was done - the girl scanned the messy scrawl quickly, he’d remembered at least half of those things.

 _What does_ that _mean?_

“D-22, could you please leave the containment chamber, we’d like to take a look at the findings.”

Before following the orders she’d been given, D-22560 again threw her arms around the doctor, squeezing tight and burying her face in his hide. She didn’t know when she’d get to see him again… so if it would be the last time for a long time, she’d say goodbye properly.

He seemed to understand this. His beak rubbed back and forth a couple of times over her forehead, separating the thick hairs that covered her eyes. “Goodbye, my dear,” he whispered.

“Until next time.” It was muffled, she spoke the words into his chest. “Look after yourself 049.”

As she crossed the chamber and waited by the door, she realised she didn’t _want_ to leave. She didn’t want to leave _him_. The door slid open and she actually felt that familiar lump growing in her throat, her eyes locked with his, before she finally turned and left.

She thought to herself - that lump growing more painful as she dropped the stack of papers on the wide desk and pushed them along - that things had definitely changed. Had she actually developed feelings for SCP-049? Her breath hitched a little, and her eyes flicked across to the window, to him, and she finally understood what that glow in her chest was, what it was _telling_ her, as she watched him pace about.

Was she the first person in the history of the Foundation to _have_ feelings for an SCP?

The blond woman calmly scanned the pages, weighing up what she’d been given with whatever was written down in her notebook. Morrigan sat, upright and still, watching her, waiting eagerly for an answer, and Bailey glanced up curiously at the D-class from where he sat - it seemed he was right all along about her.

_Smart-ass._

D-22560 decided she wouldn’t tell any of them, not even Bailey. They didn’t need to know.

The blond woman snorted a little, and D-22560 looked over.

The woman waved her hands a little, dismissively. “Textbook pattern,” she said simply. “For a _human_ adult, that is. If this is his baseline… he doesn’t _have_ a problem with short-term recall.”

Morrigan scowled. A hand shot out to the intercom and she hit the button. “SCP-049? Can you please tell me, in your own words, what you spent the last ten minutes doing?”

The doctor stopped pacing, and through the window, everyone had their eyes on him. “A test of my short-term memory,” he answered. “It was wonderful to see Andrea, to see her well.”

“Do you remember _why_ we wanted to test your memory?” She didn’t miss a beat.

SCP-049 blinked. “The diagrams, that Andrea gifted me. Apparently I had studied them extensively… I do not remember doing this. I could not remember what they were.”

The researcher’s hand snaked away from the button and she fell silent, slumped over the desk and lost in thought. D-22560 waited anxiously - she hadn’t been dismissed but now they all sat and stood completely quiet. No one even moved.

Morrigan straightened up, still scowling deeply. “Get back in there, D-22…” she growled. “We’re not finished. J███… I need you to go pick some things up for me.”

She stood and swiped her keycard in the containment chamber door, and then gave it to the RA. “Take this,” she continued. “Go to D-22’s room, get the drawings. And my office, bring me the others.”

D-22560 chuckled a little at the relief washing through her system, as she went back in there, to SCP-049. She’d been gearing up to not see him for a long time… it had only been a few minutes. As they embraced, she wasn’t complaining about any of that.

Again she slid her own hand into his and held surely. Her eyes darted over to the mirror, a nervous reaction - the researchers could see this, they were almost certainly watching from the other side. But, whether they wanted to or not, no voice came over the intercom to break them up this time. D-22560 reasoned, they had time to kill. Right now, they weren’t holding up testing.

She looked up into those gentle eyes. Did this mean he didn’t _have_ memory problems? Did that mean he wasn’t getting old? The doctor’s eyes narrowed into a smile. Maybe he wasn’t. D-22560 decided then and there she wouldn’t worry about that.

“Did the people come and talk to you?” she asked him.

A slow nod of a masked head. “They did. They had so many questions… about Doctor Radford… whether he had hurt me, or done anything else… untoward.”

He squeezed her hand tight and pulled her in closer to his own body. “Those men told me what _he_ did to you,” he said, ever so darkly. “I am sorry Andrea… I did not know.”

Against her head she could feel his heart beating faster as he spoke. “It’s okay,” she said, smiling a little despite the whole situation. “I fought him off. He didn’t.”

His hold was tighter, protective, and his heart raced against the girl’s ear. “I do not care. Had I known… I fear what I might have done to him. He might have been drafted for one of my _own_ experiments. One of the more… _unconventional_ ones.”

D-22560 dreaded to think what _SCP-049_ thought of as unconventional.

“Knowing what had happened… would have factored into my decision to bed you.” The plague doctor’s hold on her loosened, and with the tip of his beak he tilted the girl’s head up, meeting her eyes. His own were stern. “You should have told me.”

D-22560 looked away, guilty, and rested her cheek lightly against the hard, warm surface. “I know. I’m sorry. But I don’t regret doing what we did.”

She forced herself to look back into his eyes. “And you said you didn’t either. Does knowing what you do now… change that?”

“Of course not my dear, however, I do _not_ wish to hurt you any more than I already have. You were in a vulnerable place.”

“I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t think it was worth talking about. I’ll _tell_ you next time.”

He said nothing in return. He really _was_ upset, she thought to herself. She had no idea he cared that much. Was it possible he felt the same way?

She placed a kiss on his beak, and her free hand brushed up his chest, up along the folds of his hood, resting on his face, thumb stroking the textured surface. Her lips parted, tongue laving, kissing him far more intimately, and the wet sounds seemed amplified in the otherwise-quiet chamber. She didn’t come up for air.

“D-22…”

Morrigan’s voice over the intercom came unexpected, and there was something uncertain in it, that much was clear despite the slight distortion. D-22560 broke away just to turn her head to the left, and she stared at the mirror. At her own reflection. She stared at herself, her face blank, unreadable, positively daring Morrigan to say anything more about it - she didn’t.

The D-class picked up where she left off, again making out for what must’ve been minutes on end, and SCP-049 made small, contented noises so quiet only she could hear them. At some point his free hand came up to her waist. She could feel his erection digging into her hip, feel him throbbing through both her clothing and his. She pulled away.

“Sorry,” she said. “I wanna… do more but, we’re already pushing it… I don’t wanna get thrown out of here. They don’t need _me_ to do this test. Anyone else can take my place. I want to keep seeing you.”

“My dear, I understand.” His eyes closed slowly as he bowed his head. “I do not wish to cross that line either. I shall manage.”

After that, D-22560 decided it was best not to continue. Her hand came away from his face.

“So _did_ Doctor Radford… hurt you?” she asked. A part of her dreaded the answer.

SCP-049 shook his head calmly. “No. All along, I had thought him a valuable colleague, worthy of our trust. It would seem he had fooled all of us.”

D-22560 rubbed slow circles on the anomaly’s palm. “We’re not gonna see him again. They’re gonna kill him.”

“I know.”

They both turned to look as the chamber door opened, and Bailey waited in the doorway - keeping a safe distance. D-22560 went to him and took what he gave her - several drawings ripped carefully from a sketchpad. She rifled through them and recognised them all, she’d drawn them.

Bailey leaned in and spoke quietly, his voice a low purr in her ear. “T██ wants you to repeat the first test,” he said. “With all the drawings. Show 049 the first one, then turn it away. Then ask him what the drawing _was_. Go on to the next one, and repeat. Okay?”

D-22560 smiled up at him. “No problem.”

When he left and the door slid shut behind, the girl took her place again at the fold-out table. SCP-049 followed suit, settling opposite her.

“Okay 049… we’re gonna do the same thing again,” she began. “I show you a picture, and you tell me what was on it.”

The doctor again bowed his head, wordlessly. He was ready to start. D-22560 held up the page on the very top of the pile, for him to see, for a few seconds before placing it face-down on the table.

“D’you remember what that drawing was?” she asked.

His eyes smiled deeply. “Why, that was a drawing of myself. Beautifully drawn, my dear. You should be proud of it.”

D-22560 smiled in return. “Thanks. I am.”

She held up the second image, for just enough time for the anomaly to take it in.

His eyes frowned a little. “The foot of a bed,” he said. “And the corner of a simple room.”

The girl felt her face redden as she held up the third - one of the confiscated diagrams. “Yeah… I just drew what was right in front of me. I do that when I’m not really motivated.”

"An arterial structure," the doctor said as she laid it down. "Fully-annotated."

 _He remembered_ that _one..._

D-22560 held up the next.

“A self-portrait,” SCP-049 answered. His eyes, the only feature that could show any emotion, relaxed visibly as he gazed at her across the table. “You are beautiful, my dear, even on paper.”

That shouldn’t have made her feel even half as good as it did. Something inside her welled up, warm and comforting, like a drug, as she held up a labelled diagram of the lymphatic system, and she smiled from ear to ear.

When she placed the drawing face-down, SCP-049 didn’t answer. His frown was deeper than ever.

“049? Can you tell me what the drawing was?”

He stared intently at her. “I cannot,” he replied. “For the life of me, I cannot tell you.”

“Do you remember _anything_ you just saw?” came Morrigan’s voice from somewhere up above, clearly excited.

His beak turned towards the mirror. “I recall Andrea showing me a fifth image. I do not recall what it was.”

“Keep going, D-22,” came her voice again.

She did as instructed. “How about this one?” She held up the last - a basic, annotated demonstration of the cell cycle, and laid it flat.

“No… how very queer.”

There was a pattern here, and D-22560, not a researcher but certainly not stupid, could see it. The medical diagrams. But why did he remember _one_ and not the others?

“Thanks D-22. Please get ready to leave. We’re done for now.”

Again the two stood, and they held each other tight for longer than they ought to. But they broke away quicker this time - rather optimistic of her to think it, but to D-22560, it sounded like they wouldn’t be apart all that long. She hoped, anyway.

“Bye, 049.” She planted a light kiss on his beak, and then she left, the door opening as she approached it.

In the observation room, D-22560 looked to her right, across the table. Morrigan was slumped over, staring absently at SCP-049’s writing. She was clearly at a complete loss, and it was a short while before she even acknowledged the girl.

“Thanks,” she said to the D-class. “You’re free to go, we’ll pick this up sooner rather than later. I just need to think this over.”

She still stared at the scrawl on those pages as D-22560 left the observation room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few people were telling me they wished 049 could've found out what happened... and exact his revenge for her sake. I never intended for that to happen, for, reasons, we will see in the next chapter (seriously I had this whole thing planned out from start to finish before I even began writing), but for those who wished for a lil' protective 049, there is that.
> 
>  ~~Also, there _are_ rules to 049's memory quirk that I'm following. I know the general rule is obvious, but the specifics aren't something I'm planning on going _into_ in the narrative. However, if the people want me to, I will get into it.~~ Scratch that, turns out I can't write the next part without getting into it even a little bit so that's happening.
> 
> I'll probably fuck some things up because I'm only human, but, there _is_ a reason he can't remember some things in this theme but he can remember others, and why he can conjure syringes and scalpels and shit from his magic satchel.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the delay in getting this one done. Stuff's been busy. Once again become a cat mum \o/

Dr Morrigan stared absently down at something in her hand and obscured by the sleeve of her lab coat as D-22560 was let in the observation room, but when she and Bailey came in - guards and even more D-class filing in behind them - she looked up to the assistant. Her eyes looked more tired than usual.

“It’s done,” she said in a tight, deadpan voice. “He’s been euthanised.”

Bailey went to her. “I’m sorry T██,” was all he said.

“I just don’t get it,” the researcher continued as though she hadn’t heard him. “He knew what he was getting into. He was _aware_ of the consequences. He… he was _married_. He had _kids_ , he left behind _kids_ …”

“Yeah, I… I know.” The assistant’s eyes cast to the floor.

“One of them’s in med school himself. Just about to graduate, I think. The other’s about to start. My thoughts right now are with _them_. There couldn’t be a worse time for them to have to…”

Despite her voice becoming so tight she couldn’t keep on, Morrigan remained composed. After taking a couple of measured breaths, she continued.

“I asked for it to happen.” Her voice wavered a little as she stared down at the thing in her hand - a keycard. Radford’s keycard, with his photo in a tiny square space reserved for it, smiling happily up at her. She swallowed hard. “I told him I… hoped he was punished. And he was.”

A quiet sigh passed Bailey’s lips, he thought over the words carefully before they came out. “He would’ve known you didn’t want this. He _knew_ what you meant. You wouldn’t want this for anyone.”

“I… yeah J███, you’re right.”

She gestured a little with her hand, waving the keycard at Bailey who had taken his seat. “They gave _this_ to me. To dispose of. They said take as long as you need, but be sure it’s done. I don’t think I’m ready yet.”

As she held it, still staring sadly at it, D-22560’s skin seemed to crawl as she too looked at that tiny photo.

“Not ready yet,” Morrigan repeated as she set the keycard down at the corner of that wide desk. D-22560 still stared at it for a moment before she was called over. She was scanned.

“Same as last time,” the researcher told her simply. “But with a couple of differences. You’ll see. You remember how to hook 049 up for an EEG? I want readings while we’re doing this.”

“Uh…”

“You’ll remember when you get back into it, I’m sure.” Morrigan eased her over to the containment chamber door and swiped her keycard. D-22560 thought she seemed particularly distracted, and didn’t need to wonder why. “There’s full instructions in there, like last time. You’ll be fine.”

Like the last time, D-22560 hurried over to him when she was let in, and like the last time, they were given time to hold each other. Her fingers nestled comfortably in the rough folds of the doctor’s coat and she wondered to herself, for the first time, why Morrigan was allowing them to do this if they weren’t allowed to be together properly. To have time alone.

The other D-class followed her in and got to work as the two broke apart, and one of them wheeled something in front of the girl. She recognised it - an EEG machine, the same as she’d used the last time, and she picked up the laminated page, skimming over the instructions.

Morrigan’s voice came over the intercom. “SCP-049,” she began, and the anomaly looked across at the mirror. “Look at that machine. Do you remember… _ever_ seeing one of these before?”

SCP-049 contemplated it, circling around it, and his hand brushed over D-22560’s waist as he moved past her. At the minimal contact, her heart leaped into her throat. “I do not recall ever seeing this before,” he said after a while.

“Mmhm… please take a seat. And D-22, please hook him up, like the last time. Then we’ll get started.”

As she got to work, the other D-class finished what they were doing over on the operating table, and left long before she was done. D-22560 lifted her gaze to that side of the room and sure enough, it was again laden, the same white cloth draped over whatever was on it.

Her attention returned to the anomaly. “049… you don’t remember us doing this…”

She gestured to the white wires she was pasting to his hood and hard temples. “ _This_ … before? That day I was shut in here with you?”

SCP-049 frowned deeply, eyes narrowing in concentration as he thought about it. As he did, a gloved hand made its way up to his hood, and his fingers explored the electrodes that were already attached. “I do not remember _this_ ,” he finally answered. “I remember a test. With you. I remember… it was enjoyable, I recall being free to continue my own research as I pleased. I do not remember this machine.”

D-22560 was also frowning as she listened. “Huh… weird,” she murmured, before getting back to work, pasting the final few in place. “Well… maybe today we’ll find out why you don’t remember.”

*

It wasn’t her place to hypothesise as the researchers in the next room did - as they were surely doing right at this moment (D-22560 could hear them talking more and more animatedly by the minute, not over the intercom but excitable enough to hear through the wall), but the girl couldn’t help herself. She stared at the messy, childish handwriting, on the paper SCP-049 had given back to her, and then looked back up to the operating table, to the objects on it.

It just didn’t make sense. They were medical. All the objects had some relation to medical practice this time but he’d still remembered only half of them. It was clear the doctor had some problem with _modern_ medical practices but she just couldn’t figure out the pattern (if there was a pattern in the first place). The forceps, the scalpel, the stethoscope, even the fresh heart (D-22560 had been helping SCP-049 out in there for far too long, it seemed, she could tell it was human), he’d recalled all of them. They’d even included a couple of textbooks, and he’d recalled one of them. The one on Medieval medicine.

What he _hadn’t_ been able to remember was the home blood pressure monitor or the small microscope. D-22560 had suspected he’d been having difficulty with diagnostic equipment of the _electrical_ variety, but that still didn’t explain his problem with her diagrams. He hadn’t remembered the microbiology textbook either. She was less sure than ever. 

“Thanks D-22, we’ve got all the readings we need,” came Bailey’s voice, booming from up above at some point after the voices outside had hushed, and D-22560’s head snapped up anxiously to listen. “Could you please take the electrodes off SCP-049? You’re free to go after that.”

This was it. Now or never.

D-22560’s hands trembled as she pulled the wires unceremoniously off the doctor’s hood and forehead. Even he looked confused as she rushed through the whole process - after all, the last time they’d done this she’d removed each electrode with care, making sure it didn’t hurt him when the glue came off. She’d even taken the time to clean the rest of it off him after she was done. Head bowed so the girl had access, his eyes frowned at her as she yanked off the last one. Around them the other D-class set about clearing everything they’d set up before.

Like the last time, D-22560 embraced him, reaching up to drape her arms lovingly around his neck, and his came around her waist.

“Bye 049,” she said to him, putting her kiss not on his beak this time, but under his left eye, where his cheekbone might be if he didn’t instead have that hard mask. She leaned in just a little more, and whispered into his hood, where his ear would be.

“Create a diversion.”

He said nothing but they locked eyes as she broke away and her expression was hard as stone, her face unreadable.

They were still as the activity carried on around them, and his grey eyes frowned deeply. Eventually he gave the tiniest nod of his head. He leaned in to place his forehead to her own - a gesture of affection to anyone looking. “This had better be worth it…” he whispered in return.

There was no mistaking the way he carried himself after that. D-22560 recognised it - the way he slunk about after a _particularly_ undignified test. She’d first _noticed_ him move like that, slow, head down and shoulders stiff, when she’d been tasked with cleaning off that fluid - whatever it was - from his cock and he, restrained, desperate, and utterly out of his mind, had come where he stood before even being granted the mercy of penetration. She first _recognised_ it when she finally got her technique right, and managed to get him to finish inside the breeding mount instead of her. _Humiliation_. This was the body language of a man who was humiliated, and right now it meant he was resigned to whatever it was he was about to do.

And she trusted him. D-22560 turned to leave, and heard the doctor’s deep voice behind her as she reached the doorway.

“My dear, are you feeling all right?”

She turned around just in time to see SCP-049 raise a hand to the throat of one of the D-class. At the gentle touch her legs gave way immediately, and like a marionette without a master, the woman’s body crumpled and sunk to the floor. He’d killed her with a single touch.

The other D-class dropped their equipment in shock and backed to the walls. SCP-049 advanced.

“You are all sick,” he growled, pointing and addressing each in turn. “But do _not_ be afraid! I can cure you!”

The guards had reacted instantly, bursting in and while two raised their weapons, training them on the doctor, three more grabbed his arms with gloved hands and wrenched them behind his back so he couldn’t kill the others. One of them struggled with a pair of handcuffs as SCP-049 fought against their grip.

“Take your hands off me!” he hollered. “Do you WISH for the Pestilence to spread? These men are SICK! I can smell it, gnawing at them from the inside, it is RANK in the air! I can CURE them!”

From that observation room, D-22560 watched in fascination as he pulled one arm free of the guards’ grip. He took his time trying to find an opening in their clothing.

Morrigan slumped over the desk, head in her hand. “What are you waiting for?” she hit the button and sighed it over the intercom. “You’ve got tranquilisers in there, right?”

D-22560 jumped as the guard fired, she heard it from the other room, far louder than she’d expected. Through the window she saw him still struggling convincingly, dart embedded in his neck.

“Foolish men!” he bellowed. “You seek to hinder my Cure! I _AM_ the Cure! I enact the will of the Lord! I am the answer to the suffering of mankind! I AM THE ANSWER TO YOUR PRAYERS!”

He still hollered while D-22560 stepped back, making sure both Morrigan and Bailey were fully distracted, and glanced down. Radford’s keycard was still there. Good. She positioned herself between it and where she knew the camera was up above, shielding what she was about to do from view.

Another shot was fired as the D-class swiped the keycard from the desk and stowed it in the band of her sweat pants, pulling her T-shirt over it.

“And _He_ …” SCP-049 kept on, words slurred more and more with each second as the drug took effect and he, within the guards’ hold, was cuffed and subdued, and pinned to the hard floor. “Is a _vengeful_ Lord… you will… punished… all… _nghh_ …”

After that, SCP-049 couldn’t form proper words. As D-22560 still stared at him through the window, motionless, the guards ushered the surviving D-class out, and Morrigan turned back to face the girl.

“Don’t worry about him,” she said simply. “It’s only a tranquiliser. He’ll be fine in a couple of hours. This… he gets like this sometimes, we consider it normal behaviour, once in a while. It’s probably best if you go.”

D-22560 nodded quickly. “Yeah… okay.”

She traced lightly over the hard edge of the plastic stowed beneath her clothing as she scurried out of the observation room.

*

*

Even in the depths of the night, the facility was alive. Sleepy, and slow, yet very much alive - researchers in telltale white coats fighting themselves to stay awake, and guards patrolling their well-travelled routes, escorting the occasional D-class wherever they were needed. Even as she made her way through the containment zone, D-22560 heard a couple of them screaming. Pleading. Her heart sank as she listened, knowing as well as they did they wouldn’t be returning to their cells that night.

It was by some miracle she made it to SCP-049’s chamber unnoticed. The corridor was empty, and the fall of her boots as she walked was the only sound. She swiped Radford’s keycard in the door on the right, and hurried in before it shut behind.

She’d made it. The blood pounded in her ears - was that from excitement, or the fear of getting caught? D-22560 looked in through the wide window - the doctor was at his desk, recovered from his ordeal earlier on, it would seem, and by the looks of it, he was servicing his equipment - bent over his operating table, surgical tools of widely varying age strewn about and he held one up to the light. He looked like he was tightening something using a tiny implement she’d never seen him use before.

D-22560 swiped the stolen keycard in the door and let herself in. When he turned to look, SCP-049 straightened up instantly at the sight of her.

“Andrea!” he said in sheer surprise, eyeing her as she closed the distance. “What are you doing here?”

The girl smirked widely, draping her arms around his neck. “That was quite a _performance_ …” she teased. Indeed, as fascinating as it all was to witness, her regret was that he took a life to make it happen. It was a strange consolation that he’d held back against the guards, and for that she was thankful.

She broke away a little and flashed the stolen keycard. “So, tell me 049… d’you think it was worth it?”

His eyes smiled deeply. “To have you here with me? My dear, I would do it a thousand times over.”

The D-class threw herself fully onto him, lips crashing onto his hard beak, kissing him intimately. The strong arms around her waist held her tighter, pulling her body closer to his own, so much closer.

“I feared we might not have time to ourselves again,” SCP-049 continued as she kissed him. “Your stay with me… was one of the better experiences of my time here.”

D-22560 broke away just so she could speak, opting instead to rub her nose lightly against the hard surface. “Yeah… I… can’t stop thinking about you. I’ve been trying for so long to think of _some_ way…”

Someone must’ve been smiling down on them, she thought to herself as she closed her eyes again and resumed making out, hands sliding up his rough hide. The answer was handed to her. For a moment she pictured Radford, somewhere up above, leering down at them like the pervert he was in life, and that thought made her freeze up, until she could put it out of her mind.

She shrugged that thought away quickly, opening her eyes and gazing up into his. “We shouldn’t waste time.”

That was all the encouragement SCP-049 needed, it would seem, to take her by the hand and lead her over to the bed. D-22560 laid down and shifted up, and only when she was comfortable did the doctor climb on top. He braced himself on one elbow and caressed her cheek with the other hand, kissing her like he did, trailing down her neck with the end of his beak, down her clavicle, nuzzling lightly at her breasts through her clothing. D-22560 pulled off her own T-shirt and bra, and his earlier touch resumed with far more conviction. The hard mask passed over a hardening nipple, and as he palmed at her tits, his thumb followed, massaging the firm bud, making her chest heave, her breaths heavier by the second. D-22560’s needy sighs were no longer stifled by the doctor’s fingers at her tongue, they were open, unabashed, and her own hands travelled up his back, along the rough hide.

“You should be rewarded,” the girl whispered, shifting back a little and sitting up straight. “For what you did for me in testing.”

Giving her the space she needed to get up, the doctor cocked his head a little. Now knelt next to him, D-22560 placed her hands on his shoulders, easing him back, onto the pillows, and she in turn shifted further down. As she pushed his coat up, enough to expose his cock - already stood to attention - trepidation seeped through her veins. She was still gearing herself up to do this, to do this to _him_.

SCP-049 leaned up a little, watching curiously as D-22560 settled on her stomach and began to tease light breaths over his manhood. “What are you doing?” he asked, gently.

The girl’s brown eyes flicked up, watching that curious frown growing in his own eyes, and she stopped. “I was just gonna… suck your dick,” she replied.

His frown, that confusion, only grew, hooded head cocked so severely his neck must surely hurt. “ _Suck_ … my…” he repeated, like the concept was lost on him entirely.

Then it hit her. D-22560’s own eyes widened in realisation. She could hardly believe it. “No one’s… you’ve been around hundreds of years… and no one’s _ever_ sucked your dick before? You know… oral sex? … _Fellatio?_ ”

He said nothing, and they stared each other down until D-22560, despite herself, began to laugh out loud.

“Andrea, if I have acted out of turn-”

“No, 049… you’re fine,” she cut him off, smirking widely as she wrapped a gentle hand around his wet shaft, and under her touch his whole body stiffened a little. “You haven’t done anything wrong. I’m gonna blow your _fucking mind_ , that’s all.”

When she put her tongue to the base of his dick, and licked a clean line up his whole length, he stiffened further and let out a small, sharp sigh, but D-22560 was far too distracted by the taste of him to really notice. That stuff, that fluid, it was surprisingly sweet. _Overwhelmingly_ sweet, like powdered sugar. As she kept on tasting him, curiously, licking his dick clean, now relishing the quiet, satisfied sounds that came from him, she decided it wasn’t exactly an unpleasant taste. He throbbed delightfully on her tongue.

That inquisitive tongue trailed back up to the pointed tip, and she took him into her mouth. She claimed more and more length, that tapered end fit so easily down her throat it was somewhat easy to take him in to the hilt. SCP-049 gasped in delight as she came back up for air, sucking languidly as she did.

“Oh my…” he breathed. “Andrea…”

When she next came up for air, she suckled on the very tip and at that, all the air left his lungs.

“Oh… _Andrea_ …” he moaned, chest heaving. He gripped at the bed sheets underneath him as D-22560 engulfed him again.

Precum, sweet and smooth, flowed steadily onto her tongue as she licked at him, she swallowed it all, and upped her pace in response to his moans - growing, but still quiet. Steady fingers snaked up and she palmed gently at his crotch, where his balls must be underneath the hide, probably were. At his lack of protest, she kept on, her head bobbing up and down on him at a steady pace. The girl’s gaze lifted, watching gloved fingers curl even tighter, dig even deeper into the bed sheets.

“You must stop, Andrea…” SCP-049 managed to gasp.

D-22560 indulged his request and came up for air, still sucking absently at the tapered tip of his cock, coy as she met his eyes. “What’s wrong?”

“I shall not last… you must stop lest I finish down your throat.”

Around that thick grey shaft, it was difficult to smile but she couldn’t help but grin from ear to ear. It seemed there was a lot she could teach him. D-22560 swallowed him up again, earlier pace resumed, and she threw herself into the task, licking and sucking with a new enthusiasm.

“Andrea… stop…” the anomaly’s fingers were gentle on her cheek, her jaw, as trembling hands tried to pull her off. Her smaller hand came over one of his, pushing him away, and he gave up. “I shall not last…”

Under her tongue his manhood pulsed, he was so nearly there. She kept on.

“Tu dois arrêter...” he panted, his breaths shallow and heavy but somehow still measured. He made a final lacklustre attempt to ease the girl off his cock, but his resolve gave out entirely when she suckled hard on the tip again. He groaned deeply, and threw his head back on the pillows. “Arrête... _arrête... Andrea_...”

As SCP-049 howled with abandon, he exploded down her throat. D-22560 swallowed everything as it came, like everything else his cum was sweet - not sickly sweet like that other stuff, it was... _delicious_. Despite herself she moaned around his cock as she drank up every spurt - she could swallow him up all day… every day. She could get used to this.

Only when it was all over did the D-class realise her mistake. With half of him still down her throat, still very, very hard, she froze. She watched him recover from his orgasm, and as he met her wide eyes, his own lit up with fear as he too realised what was wrong.

Five minutes and sixteen seconds.

“Do not move,” he said. “I beg you, Andrea… do not move.”

_I can’t stay like this!_

“Hnnh…!” 

Even the small hum of protest around his shaft made him stiffen up - was it _that_ painful?

_“Hnnh…”_

D-22560 put up three fingers, then two. SCP-049’s eyes widened impossibly as she put another down.

”No… please-”

Like pulling off a band aid, it was over as fast as it began. SCP-049 winced as the girl let him go, however, as she sat up straight and moved in close, he quickly let her fall into his embrace. She could swear she heard him sigh with relief.

D-22560 put her arms around the anomaly, and put a light kiss on his beak. “So, how was that?” she asked, unable to hide her wide smirk.

“I…” clearly the doctor was at a loss for words. “I can hardly believe that happened. …Are you certain you did not mind…”

The girl chuckled a little, settling her head down on the pillows, next to him. She gazed at him adoringly. “It’s what you’re _supposed_ to do, 049. And for the record… you taste _amazing_. But did you like it?”

Those grey eyes bored into hers, an intense stare. “I hope sincerely, _desperately_ , that you might do it again,” he said. “As soon as I am able.”

After a beat he added. “Only if you are willing, however.”

Ever so coy, D-22560 shrugged, that grin on her face couldn’t possibly be wider. “How much time have you got?” she said. “I’ve got all night.”

Her smile faded a little after that. “I mean… I don’t have all night. I don’t wanna push it… I’m not supposed to be here.”

She indicated the keycard in her pocket, spreading the fabric over her thigh to reveal the outline straining at it. SCP-049 gave a slow nod of understanding.

“But I’ve got time,” she added, again looking up at him, flashing a small, encouraging smile. “Enough to do _that_ again… and I can lie here with you a while.”

*

*

D-22560 couldn’t have been in a better mood when she returned to her own room later on in the night. Sure, her jaw was very, very sore from all the hard work, but to see him come apart like that, to have been able to give him what she’d given him, she’d do it again, a third time, and gladly. She was exhausted - the girl swiped her tablet off the nightstand and checked the clock. 4AM. That explained why she was so tired.

SCP-049 had fucked her before she left, it hadn’t just been about him. He wouldn’t let it be that way. He’d wanted to repay the favour, D-22560 thought to herself as she took the stolen keycard from her pocket, and stared at it tiredly for a moment. She stared at that tiny photo of Dr Radford - he’d been euthanised for a crime that hadn’t hurt anyone. God only knew what the Foundation would do to _her_ if someone found out she’d stolen it… found out she was sneaking into the containment zone at night to be with him. Anomalies weren’t allowed visitors.

D-22560 used the last of her energy to reach down to the floor, and she slid the keycard under her nightstand. She smiled to herself as she settled her head on the pillows, not bothering to move, get under the covers, not even bothering to get undressed. No matter how this ended, it had been worth doing. And she’d do it again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big shout out to the contributor from the AO3 Facebook page who helped me out with the French in this story, who I'm keeping anonymous on account of this story being really, really weird.
> 
> <3


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope a more talk-y one is okay today. I feel this is important stuff to go ahead with.
> 
> Slight medical jargon ahead.

The office was quiet as a severely balding man pored over a small stack of papers, and from across the table, Dr Morrigan watched him intently. They both continued like this, neither giving anything away, until there came a few raps on the door. Morrigan looked up.

“Come in, J███,” she called, not getting up from where she sat.

The door opened, and when the balding man looked up he saw Bailey make his way in, and stood up.

Morrigan didn’t. “J███, meet Doctor Kidd.”

The older man beamed, his kind face softening as the two shook hands.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Bailey greeted him. “I’m J███ Bailey, a research assistant on T██’ project.”

“Doctor Kidd is an attending neurologist at the ██████,” Morrigan continued. “The hospital in ████.”

Bailey’s face lit up in understanding. “You’re... helping out on the 049 project?”

“Yes, I’m picking up where your co-worker, Doctor Radford… left off,” Kidd replied.

“But you’re not Foundation personnel?” Bailey asked, dark eyebrows coming together in the faintest frown.

Kidd shook his head. His every move was rather jumpy, like a rodent or a small bird. “You’re right about that, but T██ has informed me there’s special arrangements for contractors like myself.”

Bailey’s eyes flicked over to his superior’s, and all she did was offer a sharp nod of her head, confident. The RA didn’t know what she _meant_ by that, but he trusted it meant she had everything under control. His attention returned to Kidd.

“So… you’ve been introduced to SCP-049?” he asked.

Again, a rapid shake of the older man’s head. “Not yet, but I’ve been a crash course by T██. The essential reading, I’m working my way through the test logs… and these,”

He indicated the stack of EEG readings on the table.

“We got lucky,” Morrigan explained to Bailey, now getting to her feet. “05 allowed us access to E██’ hard drive. We were able to salvage his notes, and Doctor Kidd here’s had a look.”

Bailey’s lanky form straightened up noticeably. “What did they say?”

Kidd spread the papers beneath his hands. “Now, my understanding is the patient isn’t exactly _human_ ,” he began.

The researchers shook their heads in confirmation.

“What your co-worker noted - and I’d agree with - is that the patient’s readings, though pathological, are more or less indistinguishable from those of a human being. More familiar at rest, and far more pathological when the patient carried out what Doctor Radford referred to as, ‘characteristic’ activities.”

“Pathological?” Morrigan decided to start there. She frowned as she huddled around the readouts. “What do you mean by that? And did E██ say what _characteristic activities_ were?”

“Yes, he did actually.” Kidd pushed aside a few papers until he found the one he wanted, putting his index finger to a couple of the lines and tracing along. “ _These_ were recorded when the patient… _SCP-049_ … was dissecting his _own_ cadaver. Doctor Radford noted this abnormality… he queried a frontal lobe defect… and I’d be inclined to agree. Look at this…”

He indicated another. “This one was recorded at rest. It’s still pathological, but there’s an enormous difference between them.”

Kidd rifled through to another. “He noted the same abnormality in the frontal lobe when the patient was talking to your human test subject.”

“Talking about his research?” Morrigan asked. “About the Pestilence?”

“Yes… these are the activities your co-worker thought ‘characteristic’. Like I said, I’d agree with his query - there are clear problems within the frontal lobe.”

He pushed these aside in favour of the papers at the very bottom of the stack. “ _These_ were recorded during the last experiment,” he explained. “A simple test of short-term recall, yes?”

Two fingers landed on a different set of lines and both the researchers leaned in closer, following but not understanding as entirely as they’d have liked.

“Note the extremely pathological activity in the temporal lobe while this was happening.” His two fingers slid across the page, slowly, and then returned to their starting point. “Now I might be saying this in hindsight, but the temporal lobe activity appears pathological at _rest_ , too.”

“That tells us 049 has a problem with memory,” Morrigan interjected, straightening up.

“Yes, that’s right.”

The woman glowered. “That doesn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know.”

Kidd’s face fell just a little at that, and the small shrug of his shoulders was dismissive, yet still jumpy. “Yes… well… if you want to look further into these defects, you want to consider an MRI.”

Morrigan nodded enthusiastically. Indeed, this was the next step for her project, and she wanted it done. However, there was a reason no one had performed an MRI on the doctor already.

“There’s a problem with that,” she began, settling back into her chair. Kidd followed suit but Bailey, having no seat of his own, remained standing but listened intently. “Site Nineteen doesn’t have its own scanner. Medical staff submit requests for one, every now and then… site directors always deny them. They say the usage wouldn’t justify the cost. They’re right - mostly it’s just D-class… they get sent to ██████, actually. Few and far between.”

She fixed his gaze, commanding his attention. “And anomalies are _never_ scanned. 049 would be a first.”

Kidd flashed a weak, nervous smile. “Yes… I take it you’ll want to use the machine at ██████?”

“Is that something you can arrange?”

“Maybe… maybe not.” His face was less kind now, more serious. “What would we be dealing with? Physically?”

“Humanoid, about six foot two. Average build. You’ll get him in there, that’s not the problem, and we’ll make all the travel arrangements, plan the day from start to finish, all we need from you and ██████ is the machine.

“What’s the _problem?_ ”

Morrigan fiddled uncomfortably with her tight bun. “You’ve read the article,” she said. “So it’s not a surprise if I tell you SCP-049 isn’t all that lucid. He doesn’t have any problem following instructions but he _does_ get pretty anxious around people he believes are diseased. We’d have him restrained, but I can’t help but worry what he might be like in a building full of _genuinely_ sick people.”

“You’re actually _considering_ taking 049 off-site?” Bailey couldn’t help but interject.

“Yeah, I’m… _considering_ it,” the woman replied before turning her attention back to Kidd. “We’ll take whatever measures we have to, so we can guarantee _your_ staff will be safe, we’ll make... special arrangements for them. We just need your machine.”

Her eyes on his were intense, shining with excitement no matter how much the rest of her stayed composed. “049 will need to be accompanied by a handler. Someone who won’t leave his side the whole day.”

Kidd nodded rapidly, much calmer now. “Of course. Is this someone you have in mind? Or would you like us to provide a chaperone?”

“No.” She waved a dismissive hand. “He already has a handler.”

“Ah yes, the member of D-class personnel? The same woman who got us these readings?” Kidd indicated the stack of papers.

“Yeah, D-22. She’ll need to come. She’s got far more of a way with 049 than the rest of us, it’ll help if she’s there.”

“And this is the same woman who collected the… _sexual fluids_ from the patient?”

“Yeah, same woman.”

“Dare I ask,” Kidd continued, reaching on the desk for a different stack of papers. He flicked through the topmost ones. “The same woman who you subjected to all the experiments in these test logs?”

Morrigan was getting exasperated. “ _Yes_ ,” she said insistently. “It’s _still_ D-22, she did all of it. She’s got a special immunity to SCP-049… she’s one of the only ones who didn’t drop dead when he touched her. The… whole project would’ve been impossible without her. Why d’you ask?”

The doctor’s brown eyes darted back and forth rapidly as he read at speed, and he didn’t respond right away. “Her contribution is incredible,” he eventually said, reading only slowing down a little as he talked. “Reading this… I find it hard to believe she isn’t a dedicated employee, that she’s just a test subject _herself_ …”

“What do you mean?” Bailey asked.

Kidd’s kind face became more serious as he turned his attention to the RA. “You leave her unsupervised when you’re not testing, yes? That means there’s been _nothing_ stopping that woman taking the easy way out… and she’s still here.”

Morrigan’s gaze dropped guiltily to the floor when he said that. _That_ was something she’d taken for granted - they all had. She didn’t know what to say in response.

“It’s a real shame she’s going to be terminated when this is all finished. She’s done a lot for your organisation. And for SCP-049.”

The woman felt worse than ever. Still she said nothing, and when she glanced up at her co-worker, she saw Bailey staring sadly at the floor, too. The small office was heavy with a pressing silence.

“Well… thank you again for your time, Doctor,” she said after a while, standing and when Kidd followed suit, ushering him to the door. “It’s been a pleasure, we’re excited about what’s to come.”

“Likewise,” Kidd said, shaking Morrigan’s hand as she opened the door with the other. “I’ll be in touch, I’ll start making arrangements for the MRI and we can pencil in a date.”

Behind the door three guards waited, firearms readied as though Dr Kidd was a dangerous man, and when he left the office they escorted him along the corridor and out of sight. Even when they were long gone, Bailey stared down that corridor in fascination

He turned back to Morrigan, closing the door behind as they made their way back into the office. “What was all _that_ about?” he asked.

His superior shrugged a little. “I needed someone to interpret the EEGs,” she said simply. “Now E██ is no longer with us. One thing… led to another.”

“But it can’t be safe bringing in non-Foundation personnel? I’m not questioning your judgement, T██… but what are the… special arrangements you’ve made for him?”

“It’s not obvious? Amnestics.”

As he raised his eyebrows, Bailey gestured dismissively. “Of course. I’m sorry. I’m guessing the hospital staff get the same ‘special arrangements’?”

“Mmhm. It’s gonna be risky, but we’re not going in unprepared.”

The assistant pulled a slight face. “It’s still one hell of a risk, isn’t it? Taking 049 off-site? To a _hospital_ , of all places?”

“Yeah, it is,” Morrigan replied. “But if we plan ahead, perform a full risk assessment, there’s no reason this can’t go off without a hitch. Remember, D-22’s gonna be with him the whole time, she calms him like nothing else.”

That excitement she’d been trying so hard to hide before, she let it all out now and began to pace about the small space. “You know J███… it _never_ occurred to me… 049 having brain damage. Congenital brain damage. I wanna know what’s going on with him - _have_ to know.”

She stopped and turned to Bailey, hands planted on the desk between them. “When we do this… when we know what’s wrong with his brain… I can’t help but wonder if there’s anything we can do for him. You know, surgical intervention. Fix the damage. Find the _missing pieces_.”

Bailey stared. “You’re not getting at what I think you are… are you?”

Morrigan nodded excitedly. “Oh yeah, I am,” she said with a wicked grin. “I reckon we might be able to reverse-engineer his brain. Make him more lucid. Fix his delusions, make him forget all about the Pestilence. We might be able to _cure SCP-049!_ Now - combine that with a potential vaccine, we might have a shot at making him _completely harmless!_ ”

The assistant’s jaw hung open further and further as she talked, and only now she’d stopped did he compose himself properly. “I…” he didn’t really know what to say to that. “It’d be amazing T██, it really would. But I don’t want to get my hopes up.”

A quick shake of the researcher’s head. “No. Me neither. But we won’t know unless we try.”

“I… have to go,” Bailey said, shooting a quick glance at the clock on his phone. “Need to get back down to the lab, we’re… nearly done with the machine.”

“D’you think you’ll be ready to start the blood tests soon?”

“Yeah, before the end of the week. I’ll see you later T██.”

As Bailey left the office, Morrigan allowed herself to take a seat. He was right, she had to admit - she shouldn’t get ahead of herself. It would only make it more disappointing if she was wrong… if they couldn’t do anything for him. But she couldn't help but picture it - the doctor as a... _companion_ at the facility, rather than a test subject. Rather than being some _thing_ they had to keep locked away.

She couldn't stop a small smile pulling at the corners of her mouth - she'd actually come to care about him, as something more than an anomaly. Like a person. It was no mystery _why_ that had happened - it wasn't often she had her very own project to work on long-term, most of her time in the Foundation had been spent stuck on rotation, waiting for a real assignment... even at her current level, she often got stuck on rotation. When that happened, it was easier to stay detached from the anomalies, far easier to keep everything at work where it belonged when things were stressful, knowing it would all come to an end if she held out and kept her head down. Only in the last few months had she started taking it all home with her - it was a given that Foundation personnel were forbidden from doing this but she knew her husband, despite becoming sick of hearing her constantly fretting over SCP-049's well-being, wouldn't tell a soul. She needed to talk to _someone_.

It was _always_ easy to keep her distance from the D-class personnel, given they were never around for long. Maybe this was why they were disposed of after so little time... she'd grown far too attached to D-22560, far too attached to someone who would eventually be terminated. Her thoughts drifted to Radford. Losing him was hard enough, and D-22560 had become something like a daughter to her now - it wasn't like she had anyone _else_ in here to look out for her. She couldn't imagine her own daughter existing in a place like this, day by day, some other callous research team subjecting her to- no... she wouldn't think about it. Dr Kidd was right - D-22560 deserved far better than she'd get, given what she'd been through. Given her contribution, at this stage she’d be granted a relatively merciful death... chemical euthanasia was the most common - rather than being sacrificed to an anomaly. But it wasn’t good enough, not for her. She didn’t deserve to be terminated at all, regardless of what she’d done.

Morrigan swiveled to face her computer and keyboard, and she logged on to the Foundation network. Once on, she navigated to a browser page dedicated to downloadable forms. The researcher spent a while looking for the one she wanted, and when she found it, saved it and opened it up in a word processor. Morrigan began to type, pausing every now and then to properly gather the more difficult thoughts, the more complicated memories, before putting them down on the screen, hoping to herself as she did that 05 would consider her request.


	20. Chapter 20

The research team had figured out at some point into the project what caused a human being to have an immunity to SCP-049. A thymine string on the ninth chromosome - not at all common but not _exceptionally_ rare - in a small patch of junk DNA. Knowing this meant the lab team was able to develop a device that told them, to a certain degree of accuracy, who did and who didn’t have this immunity. 

This also meant the team knew much more about the genetic element of immunity than anything else. It didn’t tell them anything about the physiological basis for it. Even now, even with the genetic information, nobody could figure out what was causing it.

*

Bailey placed a finger to the power button on the small machine, and the display came to life. Beaming, he stepped back from the worktop and stood by S██’s side. Together, they spent a while admiring the thing like it was a newborn baby, or a sleeping puppy. 

“Perfect.” One arm snaked around the lab tech’s waist and he grinned down at her. “The machine’s great, too.”

S██ let out a small snort, derisive, yet she moved in closer to his body. “That’s so corny J███,” she said, breaking away to give the machine on the worktop a once-over. She leaned over, hit another button and a small tray popped out the side. The display that had previously been idle now read **00.00** , waiting for a sample.

“It’s called flirting, S██,” Bailey replied, still grinning bashfully.

“So you can’t flirt." She didn’t miss a beat, and didn’t turn away, but she did smile widely. “Needless to say… we’re not dating because you’re an _expert at flirting_. Either I saw something in you or I'm just plain crazy... can't yet figure out which.”

Her eyes roved over the machine, and she caressed it like it was made of glass. “The engineers did an amazing job on this.”

She turned back, an even more excited smile spread across her face. “Let’s test it. Your blood samples are in freezer three. Bottom drawer.”

Bailey darted around the worktop and across the massive space to the freezers. He had a small cardboard box in his hands when he came back, and he took out the tiny Eppendorf tubes. He placed them in the incubator, one by one, and after several minutes took one of the samples - now warmed up a little - and read the name printed in tiny letters on the minuscule label.

 **T. Morrigan**.

The RA placed it carefully in the tray, making sure to keep the cap open, and pushed it shut. He hit a third button, and watched as the machine got to work. It was a quiet machine, surprisingly quiet, and while it worked, the display only showed an ellipses.

“We’ve got a date for the MRI,” Bailey said, turning around to the lab tech. There was some hesitancy in his words as he said them.

S██ straightened up. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. November.”

“That’s… still months away.”

“The more time we have, the better,” Bailey replied. “We're taking 049 to a _hospital_ , we can’t be too prepared for that. And personally…”

He trailed off as the small device started to emit a high-pitched whir, and as it did, both their gazes dropped to it.

“...Personally I’m dreading it… a little. The further from now, the better.”

The whirring stopped and a number appeared on the display. Bailey and S██ both leaned in to look.

**05.33**

The RA picked up his tablet and typed in the details. “So T██ isn’t immune…” he sounded somewhat disappointed as he said it. “She wasn’t _expecting_ to be… I don’t know if she was hoping though.”

“Here,” S██ handed him an Eppendorf filled with water. “We need to flush it out and we can try D-22’s.”

"D-22's coming, did I mention?" He loaded the water and ran the machine a second time. When his girlfriend shook her head, he continued. "Yeah, she's coming. And she's not going to leave 049's side, I'm told."

"That's good, right?"

"Yeah, we couldn't do it without her- at least... we wouldn't want to try. I'm glad she's coming, no one can reign him in like she can. He'll do pretty much anything she asks, it's... strange. They've been through so much together, I think he relates to her more than us. I think he sees her as an equal..."

He trailed off and loaded a second blood sample into the now-rinsed device. "There's no one else here who could've gotten 049 to sleep with them _willingly_ , I'm sure of that."

S██ cocked her head a little, and leaned over onto the worktop, bracing on her forearms as they talked. "What's going on with them? You make it sound like they're _dating_ or something."

He pulled a face. "Not _dating_... but they might as well be. You should see them when we test, S██, it's almost... you could get diabetes watching them together. It's weird."

She frowned. "But I thought you were... you know, _making them_ -"

"Not any more, I think T██ has all the data she can get from that. I mean when they're just _together_ , holding each other and-"

Again Bailey quieted himself as the reading lit up the small display.

**99.99**

"This is D-22's blood, yeah?" he asked.

"Mmhm."

“Should’ve seen that coming,” Bailey said, more to himself than anything, as he typed. He set his tablet down and reached for an empty Eppendorf. He filled it with distilled water, removed the blood sample and flushed the machine out again.

"So... you think there's feelings there?" S██ pressed, her eyes wide.

Bailey nodded, his expression serious. "Yeah. She definitely has feelings for _him_ , she tells me otherwise when we interview. I don't believe it. She says she cares about him... never more than that, and yeah, of course she _cares_ about him but it _is_ more, you should see what they're like together. It's obvious."

"What about your doctor? Does he feel the same way? You said he does whatever she wants... right?"

The RA froze up. Now _that_ hadn't even occurred to him, and it was a worrying thought. Even more worrying... was now he thought about it, it made sense. "Maybe. He's _always_ had a weird interest in D-22. Not sexual, not even romantic, it's like he was a little fixated on her, but it's hard for me to say - that was when I first got here, that's just the way T██ sees it..."

As the machine whirred, he watched absently as the display lit up again indicating the machine was flushed, and S██ pushed a third blood sample into his waiting hand.

"Have you said any of this to her?" S██ asked, closing the incubator.

"Of course. She's not worried."

"She doesn't believe they have feelings for one another?"

"No... she believes _that_. I can't say she doesn't care, she does. She's just not worried. I can understand that - D-22's not going to be around forever so I guess it doesn't really matter how they feel."

The two shifted their attention to the machine as it again began to whir.

"It doesn't matter until one of them decides to break out, anyway. And the other will just go along with it, I'm sure."

"Have you said _that_ to T██?"

Bailey gestured noncommittally. He was getting himself worked up needlessly, but for the most part he was able to keep that to himself. "Yeah, again she's not worried. She trusts them more than I do, I think. 049 I can get... he came here willingly. But D-22... she's gone soft on her. Don't get me wrong, I like D-22 enough, she's a good person and we get on, but..."

He gave a small sigh as he read the display. "It doesn't matter. I don't have any authority and I can't change T██' mind." 

**99.99**

He frowned a little, leaning in. “Who’s this? Did you give me D-22's again?”

He hit the eject button and took out the tiny sample, and his very stomach turned to ice as he saw his own name printed on the label in tiny letters.

“S██ this is me,” he whispered, jaw hanging and eyes wide. He could feel his legs beginning to give way. “Am I immune?”

*

*

Bailey stared absently through the window at SCP-049, and as he did he felt more and more nauseated by the second. The plague doctor moved, beginning to pace about the containment chamber and the RA’s eyes followed the hem of his long coat as it lagged a little behind his every step. When a gentle hand placed on his shoulder he jumped a little despite himself.

“J███…” Dr Morrigan began. He turned his head to look her way. “You don’t have to do this.”

“I know I don’t.” Bailey’s attention returned to the doctor on the other side of the window. “But… I _need_ to know.”

“Are you afraid?”

“Would you judge me if I said yes?”

Morrigan hesitated. “Not with the risk.”

He turned his whole body to her, and the hand came away from his shoulder. “What should I do, T██?”

She sighed, not meeting his gaze. “I… don’t wanna lose you, you’re a fantastic assistant, you’ve got a real future here if you want it. But you need to be alive for that.”

“Yeah… point-zero-one percent doesn’t seem like much uncertainty until it decides whether you live or die."

“But it’s not my decision to make. If you want to… I can’t stand in your way.”

“Yeah.” He straightened up and stole another glance through the window. “I know.”

He crossed the small, wide room quickly, and swiped his keycard in the chamber door. His heart pounded somewhere in his throat and it made talking fairly difficult. “I have to do it.”

When he walked in, SCP-049 looked up. “Ah, Doctor,” he greeted politely, no longer pacing. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Yeah… 049…” Bailey was flustered as he approached, jittery, hands clamped tightly together behind his back. “You know how some of the D-class we’ve sent you have… _not died_ … when you touched them? Like, D-22?”

SCP-049 nodded once, slowly. “Yes.”

“Well… we’ve been doing blood tests. We tested my blood and… we’re ninety-nine point nine-nine percent sure I’m the same.”

Behind his back, Bailey’s hands separated, and as he held one out, he saw the unmistakable excitement in the anomaly's eyes. “And there’s only one way to find out for sure. If you don’t mind?”

“Of course not, Doctor.”

The anomaly put out his own hand, palm facing up, and Bailey’s own came above it. His hand hovered there, and aside from how violently it trembled, it remained unmoving once there.

“I just need a moment,” he said, voice wavering.

His heart had never pounded so hard, so fast, in his whole life. Who knew staring death in the face could ever be so _peaceful?_ Bailey wondered as he stood there, hand out, still working himself up to do it, what it might feel like to die. Would he know it was happening while it was happening? What happened after that? Heaven? Hell? _Nothing?_ Would this be the last thing he ever saw - the dingy grey walls and floor of the containment chamber, and the plague doctor stood before him, before everything he ever knew simply ceased to be?

He screwed his eyes tight shut. He really didn’t want to die.

The decision was taken quite literally out of his hands when SCP-049 closed the distance between them. The first thing Bailey noticed was the leather on the doctor’s palm and fingertips was very, very soft, much softer than he’d ever imagined it would be. Then it hit him - if he could register the feel of the doctor’s skin on his, he must still be very much alive.

His eyes snapped open, and he saw his own hand in the doctor’s, black thumb and fingers curling over the back of his still-trembling hand. Still in shock, he looked up and across to SCP-049’s face. His eyes smiled.

*

*

It was considered unorthodox to use non-D-class personnel in experiments, however the two had talked it over, and Bailey was a consenting adult. He knew what he was doing. It would be lying to say he and Morrigan had discussed it at _length_ , but in his mind there wasn’t really much to think about. He was immune, after all - and given that SCP-049 could only euthanise him willingly and the two researchers were certain he understood fully he was forbidden to do _that_ , it seemed there was no harm in it. Go in, shut the door. Spend some time with the doctor. Morrigan wanted to see how he reacted, and Bailey couldn’t deny he was also curious.

The RA leaned back against the wall, sat on SCP-049’s bed with his shoes off. He sat against the wall because there was no headboard. As he stirred his cup ramen he watched the doctor, who sat at his desk, writing in one of his journals. Even though there was no body in there today, he remarked internally that Morrigan was right - he _had_ gotten used to the smell. Enough so that he could sit there and think about it while he ate his noodles. Maybe it still lingered in the air - it was impossible for him to tell.

“J███?” came the voice of his supervisor from somewhere up above. On instinct Bailey looked across to the wide mirror, straightening up. “D’you mind getting something from 049’s bag?”

Immediately his eyes flicked over to it, and as he did he noticed SCP-049 had also stopped to listen, his beak turned to the left but otherwise remaining still. “Anything in particular?”

For a moment, there was no response. “…Didn’t D-22 tell us there’s a radio in there?” Morrigan eventually decided. “See if you can find that.”

Bailey lowered his fork into the tepid broth, and carefully set the cup down on the ground. He stood, and without putting on his shoes, he crossed the chamber to where SCP-049 waited expectantly, placing a tentative hand on the anomaly’s shoulder. He still couldn’t quite believe he could.

“D’you mind if I try that?” he asked.

SCP-049 waved a hand dismissively - the one not holding onto the pen. He continued to write. “Not at all, Doctor.”

The RA turned and knelt on the hard ground. He’d been present when their D-class had recalled the _process_ of retrieving the items - she’d told him there _was_ no process. That she’d just reached in there, careful to avoid the sharper implements the doctor kept loose in the satchel, and usually found them fairly quickly. Like they’d been waiting for her.

Bailey reached in with that small handheld radio at the forefront of his thoughts, cringing a little as he did. Soft lining grazed against his skin as his curious touch fell upon metal objects - medical implements - the lining was a fabric he couldn’t quite place straight away, he plunged further and further, not finding the bottom, only more metal objects (and quite thankfully, no sharps).

He watched the sleeve of his lab coat descend further in, he kept reaching - soon his elbow was in that small satchel - until his fingers came upon something unlike anything he’d so far touched in there. It was soft in places, but harder in others. Two fingers and a thumb pinched at something relatively long, and thin, smooth but hard. He squeezed but it didn’t give. Bailey followed its length, feeling more of those things ghost along the back of his hand, whatever his fingers next came upon felt an awful lot like a _knuckle_ -

With a horrified whimper Bailey snapped his whole arm out of the satchel - realising he’d been touching a _human hand_.

SCP-049 turned his head, curious. “Is something the matter, Doctor?” he asked calmly.

“There’s a _hand_ in there.” The RA was still as a statue as he knelt in place.

“Ah yes, I did wonder what happened to that…”

The doctor seemed entirely unfazed as he leaned over and delved in the bag, retrieving the whole lower half of a human arm - pale and covered in light freckles, severed crudely a little beyond the elbow as though hacked off by a tiny blade. As he waved it casually in front of Bailey’s stunned face, the assistant didn’t expect to feel quite as queasy as he did - surely he was _used_ to seeing dead bodies (and parts of them) by now? What was so different about _this?_

He watched SCP-049 contemplate the hand, watching the sunken grey eyes focus as they fell upon it, roving calmly. It was the fact that he was… up close and personal now. Maybe that came with the territory of being immune to SCP-049 - maybe people in that position got far more involved with the bodies than anyone else. The others had to keep a distance. Things had changed now, he guessed - this must be how D-22560 had felt when _she_ started assisting the doctor, all those months ago.

SCP-049’s eyes shifted back to him, narrowed into a smirk. “I salvaged this, not long after I was gifted this laboratory,” he said. “One never can tell when such a thing might come in… handy.”

Bailey forced a smile as he heard his supervisor’s voice up above, again, urging him to leave. He did as asked, slipping on his shoes before leaving and struggling to slide his keycard out of its holder with only his _clean_ hand, and swiping it in the door. When it opened Morrigan was on the other side, waiting for him to come out.

“What happened?” she asked.

“I…”

Bailey shrugged a little, the wasted air coming out as an exhale rather than words. “I couldn’t find a radio. I found a human hand.”

“I noticed.” The woman grinned widely, glancing back through the window at SCP-049 who was now inspecting the severed limb, and Bailey couldn’t help but wonder how it had stayed so… _fresh_ , thinking about what the doctor had said. How had it kept that long, in _that_ satchel, without decaying? That alone warranted further study, without a doubt.

“Why can D-22 take things out and you can’t?” she continued, returning her attention to the man, who already knew he wasn’t expected to answer. “This whole time I’ve been operating under the illusion the immunity had something to do with it… a couple of years ago they sent D-class personnel in to do the same thing I just had you do. Same result. -Not the hand… but not… _successful_.”

“There’s only one other physical factor we know to be true,” Bailey said. He too watched the doctor through the wide window. “D-22 and 049 have… had sex.”

Morrigan’s eyes widened as he said that, not out of surprise but _excitement_.

“ _No_.” He added sternly, seeing the look on her face.

She chuckled, waving her arms dismissively. “I’m just kidding J███. There’s too many variables to say for sure… psychological variables, _emotional_. It might not be that.”

After that, she offered a touch to the man’s lower arm. “I appreciate you doing this,” she continued. “We’ve learned a lot today, this is… the start of something new, I reckon.”

“Yeah. It is. I won’t ever agree to… _that_ … but I’ll help however else I can.”

“Go home, take an early one. You deserve it.”

Bailey did just that, turning to leave and remembering, an unpleasant churning of his stomach contents as he did, that his right hand needed washing. Ensuring he used the clean one to gather his things, he left the observation room, a final glance back at Morrigan as he did. He couldn’t put it out of his mind, the way her eyes had lit up. He didn’t quite trust it.

Experiments using non D-class personnel were unorthodox at the best of times, but they still happened, obviously. He’d just been a part of one. However, there was no way Morrigan would have him do _that_ , he was sure of it, that was several steps too far. She was curious, of course, but Bailey had no choice but to trust her.

*

*

The fall of D-22560’s boots seemed loud in the empty corridors as she walked. Given the risk, knowing she might be caught in the containment zone, they seemed deafening. Actually being in the containment chamber, with him, when she was there she was always able to forget the rest of the world. When it was just him and her, nothing else existed. Now she made the trip back to her own room, his cum still leaking steadily out of her, down the inside of her thigh, the fear of getting caught pressed down on the back of her neck.

She hesitated before every corner, scanning for any signs of life, and jumped at the slightest sound. SCP-049 had told her the news - Bailey had the same immunity as her, it turned out, and to say it was a huge deal - not just to the research team but to the higher-ups too - was an understatement.

D-22560 was happy for him, of course - it was a big deal being at _her_ level in this position, but Bailey was a researcher. This probably meant he was a shoe-in if he wanted to work his way up in the Foundation, keep working with SCP-049.

As she darted from one dark alcove to another, the girl couldn’t help but wonder what that meant for her. The only reason she’d been kept alive in the first place was because of her immunity, they _needed_ her alive. She supposed they didn’t any more. What would they do with her now? Was this it?

D-22560 screamed when the stock of the firearm struck her on the back of the head. She clung to the wall in a desperate bid to keep on her feet, the whole world, the whole dark world swimming around her. She gasped for breath, her head must be split in two, it was the only way to explain the pain.

“Think you wouldn’t get caught?” the deep voice, laced with loathing, was slightly distorted by the mask as the enormous guard advanced on her. Two more, equally massive, rounded the corner. D-22560 was trapped. “There’s a tracker in your fucking neck, dumb bitch!”

One of the others grabbed her tight by the arm, deliberately tight, deliberately _painfully_ tight. “Couldn’t keep away, huh? No idea 049 was so _irresistible_. Fuckin' whore.”

The other hand dived in the pocket of her sweat pants, faceless guard taking liberties in there as he groped at her hip before retrieving the stolen keycard.

“I blame T██,” he said simply, contemplating it for a moment before stowing it in his own pocket.

They pulled her unceremoniously down the corridors, silent as they walked until reaching her own room.

“What’s… gonna happen to me?” D-22560 squeaked, terrified as she looked up at the grey masks.

Beneath the armour, one of them shrugged. “Not for us to say. T██ will probably deal with you in the morning.”

And with that, she was thrown into the room, and she stumbled as the door shut, leaving her in the dark and the quiet. The fact that she wasn’t _needed_ any more suddenly mattered more than ever.

_What happens now?_


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe I'm apologising for uploading so fast but... I'm sorry I'm going so quick with these, I hope it's not a pain in the ass. I can't stop.
> 
> Hopefully we'll eventually come to a period of writers' block and I won't upload for weeks.

To say Bailey was enjoying his new-found privileges with SCP-049 would be putting it lightly. By the glow on his young features it was clear he relished being able to interact fully with their test subject, slotting himself in among the D-class as they transported the anomaly - high on sedatives - along the facility’s corridors, white coat among orange jumpsuits.

He took a core position in the ensemble despite having a much slighter build than the other three men, supporting SCP-049’s left arm around his neck and shoulders, other hand at his chest, occasionally his back, to make sure he didn’t keel over. He did this in a kind bid to spare the D-class, who were only protected by their gloves, thick, and running up under their sleeves to their elbows. The other men kept a careful hold on the harness that bound him and the metal collar at his neck, keeping him upright and on track to the interview room.

Dr Morrigan walked calmly beside the entourage, her need to take a very physical step back more imperative than ever. She wasn’t immune, they knew that with certainty now. Was she disappointed? No. She didn’t need to be able to touch him, and she never wanted to. SCP-049 wasn’t for touching, after years of Foundation personnel keeping their distance, safe, she felt there was something almost… _unnatural_ about the immunity, she thought to herself as she watched Bailey supporting his weight.

“Andrea was born in Toronto,” SCP-049’s voice was only a little slurred. He didn’t have any trouble talking - just walking, moving about was difficult, like he didn’t know where, or when his boots would land whenever he took a step, or how far his extremities might go if he moved them.

“Toronto, huh?” Bailey repeated, side-eyeing the doctor with a small grin on his face. This was his first time seeing SCP-049 in this state, and to him it would seem the whole situation was somewhat amusing. “I’ve never been. Have you?”

“I have been _everywhere_ , my friend,” SCP-049 continued. “That is to say, I have been… many places. Toronto is one such place. My memories of Canada are fond. I recall stowing away on board a merchant ship from continental Europe some… two-hundred years ago. I did not know the destination but it did not matter - I yearn to look upon new landscapes as much as I yearn for a cadaver… or a live patient… to teach me something I do not already know.”

As the team reached the door to the interview room, Morrigan went on ahead and swiped it open. She stood back to let them file in, one by one. SCP-049 stumbled a little, clinging to the doorway to keep on his feet, and on instinct two of the guards trained their firearms on him.

“She has a mole on her lower back which displeases me,” he continued, talking to no one in particular but letting Bailey throw a limp arm back around his shoulders now the two were in the otherwise-barren room. He’d hardly stopped talking about her since the drug had taken effect. “Andrea. It may be benign, however my own mind would be at ease if she was given a second opinion.”

“Mmhm, we’ll see what we can do,” Morrigan said, crossing the threshold now it was safe to, the last one in. She wouldn’t. It wasn’t like D-22560’s long-term health was of any concern to anyone, not right now anyway.

The four of them managed to ease him into a special chair, one with thick chains hanging down the back, and they began the process of switching the harness for the chains.

“Andrea has taken to doing something quite novel for me,” he continued, again to no one in particular. “And it is _delightful_.”

“Oh yeah?” Bailey asked as he manoeuvred a heavy chain carefully around the anomaly’s torso, still smiling.

“Indeed… what did she call it? I forget. Ah yes… _fellatio_.”

The noise - the whimper that came from Bailey, brought to mind images of a man with his testicles caught in a vice. Morrigan raised her eyebrows a little as she looked across the room at him - his lips pursed tight in a desperate attempt to keep himself from laughing. His body was stiff and unnatural, he concentrated almost too hard on his task after that, pretending as hard as he could that he hadn’t heard a thing.

“She is _very_ talented,” SCP-049 continued, utterly oblivious to the tension in the room. He turned his hooded head to Bailey, fixing his gaze as best he could with unfocused eyes. “You should ask S██ to do it to _you_.”

“J███, would you like to get some air?”

Morrigan decided she ought to excuse him, the poor guy looked like he might pass out if he had to put up with any more of this. Never in her life had she seen a man run so fast, as he fled the room, shutting the door behind. His peals of laughter could be heard from inside the interview room.

She turned her attention from the closed door to the anomaly, who for a while watched in abject fascination as the D-class kept on with their task, fastening the chains in place around his neck and unclipping his harness.

Suddenly, SCP-049 looked up at her, eyes perfectly focused and holding an expression so serious, so severe, it sent a chill up the woman’s spine, and when he next spoke that same severity was heavy in each word.

“One day, Andrea shall become as _I_ am.”

"...Huh?"

After that, he said nothing, not even when questioned. He just sat in the chair, eyes closed peacefully and head lolled over, slumped forwards against those thick chains at his chest and neck. He was sound asleep. Morrigan stared. _That_ was... creepy, she decided. Fucking creepy.

“049,” she said again, sharply.

She received no response. “SCP-049!”

Still nothing. Morrigan turned to look as the door behind her opened and Bailey came back in - his eyes were wet like he’d been crying a little, but for the most part he was composed. The D-class left, accompanied by two of the guards, and for the next several minutes the researchers and remaining guards waited for the doctor to come around.

Had that even happened? She wondered for a moment as she watched him finally lift his head, opening bleary eyes. Of course, anything SCP-049 said while high was to be taken with a _generous_ pinch of salt, but… something about that exchange just rubbed her the wrong way. Even now, as he began to fully wake, she knew those words would be keeping her up at night.

She and Bailey took the two seats opposite the plague doctor, and the guards remained standing, pacing about the walls. Only when they were sure the sedative was out of his system - more or less - did they begin the interview.

Bailey cleared his throat a little, still not entirely capable of looking him in the eye as he placed his tablet on the table and tapped the screen to begin the recording. “SCP-049… you probably know why we wanted an interview today,” he began.

The anomaly said nothing. He only stared the researchers down.

“We know D-22560’s been using Doctor Radford’s keycard to access heavy containment… and see you at night,” the RA continued. “The card going missing was concerning enough, but it was only when Dr Morrigan…”

He glanced over at his superior, and she gave an encouraging nod, urging him to continue.

“...Reviewed D-22560’s tracker history… did we put two and two together. And we were right. We’ve spoken to her already, but we wanted your side of the story. If you don’t mind.”

SCP-049 gave a single slow nod. “I was instrumental in her acquisition of the keycard. I did not know what she was planning… and I did _not_ know until Andrea came to my laboratory that night. If you wish me to tell you I regret my actions, or hers… I am afraid I must disappoint. I was glad to be alone with her.”

“We don’t have to ask what you used that time _for_ …” Bailey said, again averting his gaze and pursing his lips, but this time he stayed composed. He looked down at his prompts. “So, you distracted us for her. Do you… do _everything_ she tells you? Without question?”

The anomaly actually laughed - a little. It was a quick, derisive exhale. “Of course not, Doctor! Forsaking my own autonomy in such a way would be foolish! However, I trust Andrea. If she would ask me to create a diversion… I believe she must have good reason to ask it. I was correct.”

The look in his eyes softened a little. “Will she be punished?”

“Can’t really punish D-class,” Morrigan interjected, a small shrug of her shoulders. “Can’t punish someone who has nothing left.”

SCP-049 turned his attention to her.

“What she did was stupid, and if she were anyone else I’d question her motives. But we know why she did it. And _I’m_ equally negligent for leaving it where anyone could take it. You could say I’m _disappointed_ … really disappointed actually, but there’s not much we can do aside from terminate her, and we can’t do _that_.”

“So… she will not be punished?”

“Oh, she is - since she’s _technically_ equipment for my project, she’s my responsibility - I was obligated to punish her in _some_ way, so right now she’s serving time in solitary confinement. Which means testing’s on hold until that’s finished.”

She watched his eyes carefully as she said that - the doctor was no stranger to solitary confinement himself, he’d surely appreciate what D-22560 was going through right now. His mind, however, processed the world differently from theirs. In a way, he was set up for long periods of time alone, un-stimulated, whereas no human being was. Plus, they knew he could hibernate if he needed to - they’d seen him do it for weeks at a time in containment and theorised he could even go for months.

“And I figured knowing your ‘ _lover_ ’ is suffering the consequences of your actions would be punishment enough for you.” Her eyes cast to the floor as she kept on. “You and D-22560 aren’t authorised to see each other outside of testing. That’s just the way it is.”

Hooded head bowed a little. “I see.”

“This is something you already knew.”

The doctor looked up. “I am to be taken out of the facility,” he said darkly. “For what purpose I do not remember, however I know it to be important - I have not been permitted to leave for any reason thus far. What it is you have planned for me, is important to you.”

He leaned in to the limits of his restraints, they clinked against one another as he moved. “Being denied time with my lover leaves me… displeased. And when I am displeased… I am not inclined to _behave_.”

The researcher’s eyes were wide. “You’re blackmailing me?”

His narrowed into a frown. “Is it working?”

“This interview is over.”

Morrigan reached over and snatched up the tablet, hitting the screen. She stood, addressed the guards. “We’re done. We need three D-class and… contact the hospital, please, we’re ready to sedate again.”

One helmeted head gave a nod of affirmation and reached for the walkie-talkie at his hip, and Morrigan cast a final glance at the doctor. His eyes followed her. Normally she’d accompany him back to the containment chamber but what he’d said before was still fresh in her mind, and needless to say it had unsettled her thoroughly. She’d sit this trip out. Bailey wouldn’t, she knew he’d stay and help, but she would.

She put a hand on the RA’s shoulder. “You can go home when he’s back in containment. I’ll be in my office, I… have to think things over.”

Without looking back at the plague doctor still restrained, she picked up her bag and left the room. In the quiet corridors, the click of her heels on the hard floor was loud, almost distracting from the woman’s thoughts. What she was doing - trying to do - for D-22560 was rather exceptional. Surely, SCP-049 should be commended equally for everything he’d gone through - after all, he’d contributed just as much to the project as she had, and he’d suffered just as much… if not more. And unlike D-22560, his only crime was being who he was - what he was - and that was something he couldn’t help.

Morrigan reached the elevator and hit the button for the fifth floor. She was getting soft, after all this time in the Foundation she always imagined it would be quite the opposite, yet here she was. But why shouldn’t she be? After all, what was wrong with having a little empathy for two captives, who didn't really have anything but each other? They were on borrowed time anyway - what harm could it do to allow them a last hurrah?


	22. Chapter 22

“I’m sorry,” D-22560 said quietly, her eyes cast down, sadly, to the tablet on the desk between them, rather than look Dr Morrigan in the eye. “I really am. I didn’t mean to go against you or the Foundation, I just… I really wanted to see him, it was the only thing I could think of. I really miss him.”

Tears welled up in her eyes, and as she closed them they made tracks down her face. “I won’t ever do it again, I’ll be good. …I don’t ever wanna go back in there.”

Though her vision still swam a little, when she stole a glance up she could see Morrigan was surprised - no, horrified by what she saw, and D-22560 didn’t really blame her. At some point in confinement - towards the middle, she guessed - she’d scratched deeply at her arms and legs for what must’ve been hours, just to feel _something_ , just for stimulation of any kind. Now she was out of there she wished she hadn’t resorted to that - she loved her tattoos (not to mention the wounds were itching like crazy, and some of them still hurt), but it was all she could do to keep herself from going completely mad.

She supposed the tattoos would be fine. Hoped they would. When she’d been told solitary confinement was the chosen punishment, D-22560 felt relieved. How bad could _that_ be? She’d convinced herself it would be fine. Surely it was better than being raped over and over, she’d thought, and she wasn’t being made to clean out SCP-173 again. As she examined the look in Morrigan’s eyes, in the lines of her face, it was clear the researcher had also underestimated the punishment.

“I won’t send you back in there,” she finally responded. “I… I’m sorry. D-class personnel aren’t punished for wrong-doings, they’re just terminated. It was solitary confinement or termination, and we still need you alive. I was told… three days was the absolute minimum.”

“Mmhm.” D-22560 tended to a nagging itch on her elbow.

“I really am sorry,” Morrigan repeated.

“I’m out,” the girl said simply, not looking up. “It’s okay.”

It wasn’t really okay, but she was more relieved than she could express that she was out. At least she could read and draw again, listen to the radio. Sleep with the lights out. It wasn’t exactly _okay_ , but some part of her kept feeding her the idea that all she could do from here on out was begin to heal. So she did - it was impossible to push it from the forefront of her mind, at least right now, but still she did her best to move forward and not back.

While Morrigan could see it wasn’t okay, she didn’t press. She looked down at her own notes. “I wanted an interview to talk about SCP-049,” she said, changing the subject. “We interviewed it a few days ago and it’s evident to us… that it’s under an unusual amount of stress.”

Dismayed, D-22560 stared. Her eyes were wide. “Is he okay?”

“This is a stressful period, and it would be for _any_ sentient object. It’s under a lot of stress anticipating the trip to ██████… and preparing for it. Not to mention testing over the last several months has been, at times… cruel. The investigation hasn’t helped either-”

“-Hang on, you’re taking 049 to the hospital?” D-22560 cut her off. “That’s in the town, right?”

“Yes, we see fit for it to have an MRI. For research purposes, we… want to know more about _why_ it has problems with memory, and maybe even investigate the _neurological_ basis for its behaviour. Right now we’re aiming for November.”

“You don’t have an MRI machine here?”

“No. The nearest one is at ██████. Which means SCP-049 has to be taken off-site. Which means, naturally… you’ll be coming with us.”

“Because I’m immune?”

Yes, and… …Look, I can’t get off-track here, I’ll explain later. What I was saying was, it’s _unnecessarily stressed_ right now, and there’s no need for a sentient object to be subject to that kind of stress. It isn’t permitted luxuries, but we have to treat it with _some_ level of decency.”

“...Yeah?”

“This level of stress highlights the need for a… _pastoral technician_ … of sorts, to work with SCP-049 for the foreseeable future.”

“Pastoral technician? Like, a counsellor?” D-22560 had an idea of what both of those words meant individually. Hearing this, a small stab of jealousy dug its way into her chest.

“...Not _exactly_. The responsibilities as outlined in the job description… are to gather information on what’s making it stressed, work _with_ it and find ways to make it less so. Make changes in its routine and lifestyle to achieve this. Be a listening ear for it, a friend- or… a _counsellor_ … someone it can feel safe talking with, about its concerns and fears. Provide company, be a constant in an environment that’s changing all the time.”

Morrigan pushed the papers away from her, and folded her arms, one over the other, on the table. “And conduct any activities that can be shown to reduce its overall stress level.”

The girl’s heart sank further and further as Morrigan spoke, and by the end she felt truly miserable. She itched at her upper arm. “Okay.”

“And you’re surely aware that any new role means advertising a vacancy and organising an interview cycle, yes?”

A small, shaky breath passed her lips as she looked into the researcher’s eyes, more itching. “Yeah.”

Maybe if she asked, she could have some say in who they chose. What _complete stranger_ would be working so _intimately_ with her lover. Why _shouldn’t_ she have a say? She knew SCP-049 better than most, after all. Whoever they chose, they’d be a big part of his life, bigger even than _she’d_ been, and she wanted the best for him. “Are you hiring now?”

“I am, yes,” Morrigan replied. A coy grin spread across her face. “But advertising a vacancy and organising interviews is somewhat a waste of the Foundation’s resources… and _my time_ … when we already have an ideal candidate for the job working here.”

As D-22560’s eyebrows knitted closer and closer together in an even deeper frown, Morrigan continued. “There’s no one at this facility more suited for the job than you, D-22560, so I recommended _you_ for the role… and… you’ve been approved.”

In that moment the girl could swear her heart skipped a beat. “ _What?_ You want…”

“You’ll have responsibilities, of course,” Morrigan continued, positively beaming as she pushed a contract, three or four pages stapled together in the corner, across the table to the D-class, along with a pen. “If you decide to take the job. Two evenings a week - at the end of the working day - you’ll be escorted to SCP-049’s containment chamber. You’ll be locked in overnight to carry out your duties, so make sure to bring anything you think you’ll need. You won’t be collected until the next work day starts.”

“So… I get to see him? _Alone?_ ”

“Mmhm, that’s right. For D-class personnel though, it’s obviously unpaid.”

D-22560 flicked briefly over the pages of the contract, and looked up from it, eyeing the researcher suspiciously. More itching. Only now was it was beginning to sink in.

“You… played the system, didn’t you?” she breathed. She could hardly believe it.

That smile, ever so coy, couldn’t be wider. “I did no such thing,” Morrigan replied simply. “You, already having a much better rapport with SCP-049 than anyone else - a better rapport than anyone else could _hope_ to have, and having its full trust, are perfect for the job. I have to do right by my project, surely you appreciate that.”

With a trembling hand, D-22560 reached for the pen.

“You don’t have to sign anything right now,” Morrigan said. “Take the contract back to your room, read it through. You don’t have to take the role if you don’t-”

The woman silenced herself when D-22560 scrawled her name at the very end of the document. She got to her feet and moved around the table, and Morrigan visibly reeled when the girl threw her arms around her. As she hugged her tight, she began to quietly sob.

“D-22, this isn’t at all appropriate-”

“-Thank you…” the girl whispered between the hitching of her breath. If she’d heard, she chose to ignore. “Thank you Doctor, thank you-- _so much_ … I won’t let you down, I’m sorry-- I’m sorry… I’ll be good, I promise. I’ll do whatever you want… thank you-- thank you…”

The older didn’t know how to react. “Just see to it 049 gets the care he needs,” was what she settled on in the end. “For you, it shouldn’t be too hard.”

“No… no, it won’t be.” D-22560 shook her head rapidly against the stiff lab coat, tears darkening the fabric as they fell down her face. “ _Thank you_. You _won’t_ regret it.”

*

*

By 5:00PM that same evening, she had an overnight bag packed. Her sketchpad, pencils, and her tablet - and the charger, this time. A change of clothes for the morning, and a few snacks to tie her over. She didn’t need to bring water, there was a sink in the containment chamber and last time she’d been locked in there she’d drank as much as she needed. Of course, she didn’t much like having to pee in a bucket every time but she was _spending the night with SCP-049_ , and that was collateral damage. If it meant getting to be alone with him for even a minute, she’d do it gladly.

Morrigan was the one to escort her, offering a kind smile as she beckoned for her to leave her own room and follow into the containment zone. But she walked too slow, and while D-22560 was happy to go on ahead at speed, she waited at the doors she couldn’t open with her own keycard. The journey there seemed long, much longer than normal and that, she supposed, was testament to just how excited she was for the night ahead.

Like the first time she ever entered that chamber, her heart pounded violently, but this time it wasn’t out of fear. As soon as the door was opened she threw down her bag and hurried in and over to him, hugging the anomaly tight before he even knew she was there.

“ _Andrea!_ " SCP-049 gasped in surprise. "You must not come here, we have been warned…” 

Confused eyes roved over the scene from beneath the avian mask, until he caught sight of the researcher who stood in the doorway, smiling warmly as she watched the two embrace. After that it seemed he understood fully. For a moment he held her just as tight, but then broke away, allowing her to kiss him as he inspected the deep wounds on her arms, black thumbs trailing carefully over a couple of them. “What on earth _happened_ to you?”

D-22560 only broke away to talk. “Moving forward,” was all she said about it. Her hands travelled up the back of his coat - oh, how she'd missed the feel of his hide under her fingers, so strange but so familiar now. “I’ll explain later. Just fuck me.”

Before Morrigan even had the time to turn around and give the two some privacy, bright orange clothes were being pulled off and thrown about the floor. She did turn, and heard the creak of bed springs behind her as she crossed back into the observation room. Despite herself, she still smiled as she shut the door.


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now officially the longest individual thing I ever uploaded (not the longest thing I ever wrote, there's a 250,000 word original novel from when I was 16 that I don't talk about) in both words and chapters, and I'm honoured to have so many people on this journey with me. I love you all.
> 
> The song on the radio during this scene is the Kings of Leon cover of _Hands to Myself_.

Inside the containment chamber the walls were grey and devoid of any decoration, seeming to absorb the light. A couple of old copper pipes reflected it only a little, running up the corners to the ceiling and snaking along, until they disappeared somewhere unknown to either captive. Sometimes the pipes groaned, but not often. It must be night by now, since the fluorescent lights up above had switched off some time ago, and the adjustable lamp would have to do. The containment chamber hardly seemed an ideal place to spend one’s time, and it certainly didn’t seem homely - the first time D-22560 went in there she’d wished with all her heart she could be _anywhere_ else.

The radio played - D-22560’s tablet was cast aside at the foot of the bed, fully-charged and providing background music for the two of them for some time now. With the pillows behind her head and her back, separating her from the hard wall behind, the girl leaned against it, her knees drawn up and bare feet planted on the mattress, her sketchpad rested on top. Her eyes flicked up from the open page, to him. SCP-049 worked on the other side of the chamber - last time she’d looked, the doctor had removed mangled viscera from a clear plastic bag and now it seemed he was splicing it into his newest corpse. He’d moved to work on the other side of the table - so now he actually faced her way the two of them could talk easily. D-22560 took the opportunity to draw him, in his element. As she did, her left hand spread along the covers underneath her until finding the half-finished bag of tortilla chips, and she took a couple. They crunched loudly as she ate but surely the radio was louder.

The containment chamber hardly seemed the most inviting place, yet to anyone who entered it at this moment, it would be clear they’d made it a home.

The girl brushed her bangs out of her eyes for what must’ve been the tenth time that evening, and huffed a little in frustration. She’d had enough. She put aside her sketchpad and slid off the bed, and she crossed the room, kneeling down to the black satchel resting against a table leg.

SCP-049 watched her with interest as she rummaged around in there, breaking away from his task. “What is it you need, my dear?”

“Gotta fix my hair, I’m tired of it…” she replied distractedly, more than elbow-deep in that small bag now, closing a fist around something cold and hard, and tapered. She withdrew her whole arm, taking out a medium-sized pair of metal scissors.

D-22560 returned to the bed and, in the absence of anything else to use as a mirror, she propped her tablet up so she could see her forehead in the dark screen. Across the room, SCP-049 watched her cut severely-overgrown bangs to a more manageable length. It only took a few minutes until she could see properly again, thick chestnut hairs were strewn about the bedsheets and on her T-shirt - she’d find a way to clean them later on, maybe he had a lint roller in that satchel… and she spent a few more minutes refining the work, feathering the edge to make it a little more presentable. She leaned back a little, examining the work, turning her head this way and that. It was a little uneven, but to her it was a huge improvement.

Now she was finished, the doctor returned to his own work, and started preparing a fresh batch of resin. “Is that better?” he asked as she approached, again squatting down and stowing away the scissors. Her arm descended further in the satchel, still rummaging.

She pulled out a lint roller and stood. She smiled. “ _Much_ better.”

D-22560 got to work, kneeling on the bed and scrubbing at the hairs until the roller wouldn’t pick up any more. She peeled away the outer layer and kept on.

Nearly done, she paused. “It’s my birthday,” she said, casting a hesitant glance over to the left, to the doctor. “That’s why I didn’t come yesterday. They let me wait so I could spend it with you.”

SCP-049 stopped what he was doing, head lifted to her, and D-22560 put the roller aside, leaning over the edge of the bed to her own bag. She pulled out a small container. “There wasn’t any cake to bring in but I did get these…”

As the doctor put his resin aside, washed his hands and approached the bed, D-22560 took two small cupcakes out of the clear container. She broke one up into four pieces on its case, as cleanly as she could, and placed it in his palm as he sat down beside her. “It’s better than nothing, right?”

The anomaly contemplated the remains of the cupcake for a moment before taking one of the pieces carefully between finger and thumb, and bringing it up under an open gap in his mask, to his mouth. D-22560 watched him as she took a bite out of her own. He had a mouth under there, it turned out. She’d even been able to reach in there and kiss him the same way he did her - by the way his anatomy felt under her fingers she decided it was a pretty human mouth. Being kissed that way, it did nothing for him, it seemed he didn’t need it like she did, and kissing him like that did nothing for her, either, so after that they didn’t try it that way again.

He swallowed before saying anything. “I am glad you wished to spend the day with me,” he said, before picking up another piece.

“Yeah, I’m just glad they _let_ me.” D-22560 put away the rest of her own cupcake quickly, stuffing the last in her mouth. It was a little dry, but not terrible. Better than nothing.

SCP-049 chewed slowly, his head pointed towards the far wall, the motionless corpse split open down the middle. He swallowed, and turned back to the girl, eyes narrowed into a warm smile. Along the covers his right hand spread, until finding her left, and he placed his on top. “Happy birthday, my dear,” he said.

The D-class smiled in return, and placed a light kiss on his beak. She really had no expectations at all for her birthday as a test subject in the SCP Foundation - the three she had in actual prison were okay, she’d made friends in there who made a big deal out of it, and she for them. Given that she hadn’t expected anything whatsoever from this one, it was pretty good.

“Do _you_ have a birthday?” she asked.

He paused, cupcake segment half way to his mouth, and set it back down in its paper case. “Surely I must,” he said after a period of deliberation.

“You don’t know?”

“I do not remember… I came to be so long ago, my dear - the finer details of my life are less clear now, and there is no one alive today who can remind me. You must appreciate that.”

“Do… you want one?”

D-22560 shrugged and gestured dismissively as SCP-049 cocked his head. “I mean… we could make one for you. So we could… celebrate it? Maybe?”

Though his eyes still smiled, he shook his head, a dismissive wave of his own hand. “It is unnecessary,” was all he said. “But… thank you.”

He set the last half of the cupcake down and the two lapsed into a comfortable silence, listening to one song end, and another fade in. D-22560 recognised the slow, soft beat, gradually building, and looked up to the doctor.

“Dance with me?” she asked meekly.

At first he only stared at her, with the music building further, a yearning melody filling the chamber. The unique acoustics of the space created an echo about them, almost ethereal, and eventually he got to his feet. D-22560 followed, vaguely aware that her heart was now pounding somewhere in her throat as SCP-049 took her left hand in his right and led her, measured, elegant strides in perfect rhythm with the gentle percussion, to the middle of the chamber. His left arm folded behind his back. The girl had a feeling, somewhere inside of her, that as it was with so much up to now, he’d done this before.

Still holding her hand, he asked it, so softly. “Do you know how?”

D-22560 shook her head, feeling herself blush. “Uh… no. Can… you show me?”

“I can.”

The doctor let go of her hand and stepped back a little. He bowed deeply, confidently. _Formally_. D-22560’s heart, still hammering in her throat, nearly exploded. She hadn’t expected this.

He stood at full height again. “My dear, it is quite simple. Your hand shall stay here…”

Gently, he guided her left hand to rest on his shoulder, in the folds of his coat. “And mine…”

His right came about her waist, a light caress over her T-shirt, and on instinct, D-22560 moved in closer. SCP-049 grasped her other hand in his.

“Is is quite simple,” he repeated. “I shall lead.”

That was a concept D-22560 didn’t understand. Against him her steps were unsure, awkward, she didn’t know which way to move. As he took elegant, effortless steps, some her way, she moved against him - a bare foot treading accidentally on the stiff leather of a boot, and felt somewhat lucky it wasn’t the other way around.

“Relax this side, Andrea…” he squeezed her hand just a little to indicate, fixing her gaze with his own. “And submit to me. Allow me to _lead_ you.”

After that, she paid closer attention to the doctor’s every move, and though she lagged behind a little, tentative in her steps, they were finally moving as one. When he eased her along, eased her back, she let herself be eased back and they settled into a comfortable slow-step.

“Much better,” he whispered into her ear as she pressed herself close to his body. He let her.

D-22560 smiled, looking up into his eyes. “Can we do the… thing? You know, spin me?”

His eyes smiled in return and as he waited for the moment - the drums built up to a climax, and obliged. She knew what to do this time, letting herself fall away, spinning on the ball of her foot, and letting him pull her back in, and when she fell back against him she was positively beaming - even laughed a little out of pure exhilaration. Her free hand stayed put on his chest as she moved in time with his every step, relishing the moment.

At some point, both her arms found themselves draped around the doctor’s neck, and his were both at her waist, and that was how they stayed as they moved together. He held her so close. D-22560’s face felt a little sore, she’d been beaming so widely for so long now, but she just couldn’t stop. Dropping her gaze from his, she rested her head on his chest, a little below his shoulder, feeling the gentle beating of his heart, and the hard edge of his beak rubbing up and down her neck. At that moment she realised she’d been wrong. This wasn’t just a pretty good birthday - it was one of the best. Her whole life, right now despite the situation she was in, she wouldn’t change a thing. Not a thing.

They danced, slow, moving together until the music faded, quieter and quieter, into nothing. She looked up, gazing deep into his eyes. In that moment, she’d never felt more connected to anyone in her life.

_Don’t say it._

She wouldn’t ruin this moment. Instead of saying anything, she opted to place a kiss on the curve of his beak, light and gentle, but the canned intermission made D-22560 jump a little as it echoed around the room. She broke the kiss.

Still gazing down at her, SCP-049 reached around the back of his neck for her hand and held it surely in his own. He led her back to the bed and eased her on. He didn’t climb on himself, not right away, instead he picked up the tablet at the end of the bed and shut off the radio - the far more lively song bouncing about the walls stopped abruptly.

He cast the tablet back down and turned his hooded head to her, watching her wriggle out of her sweat pants in anticipation, and then her panties. Now he climbed on the bed, straddling the girl, his tall form looming over her smaller one. The doctor pushed his coat up, revealing his emerging need, wet and shining in the meagre light, as the other hand traced along a strong, bare thigh, to her sex, already wet and ready. Thumb massaged her clit as two fingers slid deep inside, and D-22560 bucked up against his hand as he worried at her G-spot.

“Please…” she sighed. She closed her eyes in pleasure.

SCP-049 withdrew his fingers, and suddenly both hands were under her thighs, below her ass, sliding up. He hoisted the girl’s shins onto his shoulders, manhood rubbing against her thigh and leaving a wet trail on her flesh, and he braced one arm somewhere near her head.

"You are so beautiful, my dear." He was so close he only had to whisper.

The rough hood tickled D-22560’s ankles as he ground forcefully into her folds, then positioning himself and easing inside. She gasped in pain - it still hurt like she wasn’t ready, it always would. As he claimed more depth she worked through it, breaths heavy but measured, and his free hand came up to her cheek, stroking olive skin with a thumb. He hilted fully, and set a steady pace.

“ _Andrea_ …” the doctor breathed, leaning forwards, pushing his lover’s legs further back, testing the limits of her flexibility as he pistoned into her. Heavy-lidded eyes gazed down into hers, he watched her pant beneath him, no longer from pain now but from bliss.

At some point he pulled out and knelt up fully, strong hands came under D-22560’s ass, squeezing a little, lovingly, as he pulled her up and buried himself deep inside her again, filling her up delightfully - perfectly. He pounded into her, pace far more urgent than it had been.

“Andrea… _Andrea_ …”

He repeated the name like a mantra under each heavy breath, and as D-22560’s own hand travelled down her body, finding her clit, she couldn’t tear herself away from those gorgeous grey eyes, pupils blown for her. She was ready to burst.

_Don’t fucking say it…_


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song playing on the radio at the very end is _Nevermind_ by Dennis Lloyd. Same one that played during the "Sleepover" in chapter 11.
> 
> I know I'm playing a little fast and loose with the canon here, but, _soon it won't matter_.

“You wanted to see me, Doctor?”

D-22560 stood nervously in the doorway, peering into the office through a small open sliver, having pushed the door open only a little. She locked eyes with Dr Morrigan.

“Yeah, come in,” the researcher said, beckoning with her arm as she swivelled around a little to face her computer screen. She indicated an empty chair on the opposite side of the desk. “Have a seat.”

The D-class pushed the door open fully, careful to close it behind her, and made her way across the cramped space with tentative steps. She lowered herself into the chair and waited for a response from the older woman, who was still clicking away and typing.

Eventually, she returned her attention to the D-class, hesitant to start saying the words - like she didn’t really know what she was _going_ to say. “I’m… not sure how to start with this, to be honest with you D-22…” she began, and the younger leaned in, curious. “I’ve never had to deal with this kind of… circumstance before.”

“What is it?” D-22560 asked, wide-eyed. “Is it something I did?”

“No, D-22, you haven’t done anything. This is hard for me to start with, I’ll… just get to it.”

Morrigan fiddled a little with her tight bun. “To a member of D-class personnel, the SCP Foundation can be a difficult place,” she finally managed, averting her gaze distractedly.

 _Yeah, just a little_ , D-22560 thought to herself, sarcastically.

“Uh-huh…”

“When you’re subject to test after test, some of them… pretty dangerous… it can be hard to see it from our perspective. From _our_ perspective, we know the Foundation prides itself on being as fair as it can to its employees.”

The girl nodded. “Yeah, it started out horrible,” she said, seeing no harm in being honest about that. Memories of cleaning out that fucking statue were still fresh in her mind, after what must’ve been nearly a year, and despite how things had turned out for the two of them, it still hurt to remember the day she met SCP-049. How nobody came to her aid. Unwilling to interrupt the observations. “But… you guys have been really good to me… and to 049. And you didn’t have to do that for either of us. I can see what you mean.”

As she watched Morrigan still playing awkwardly with her hair, she had no idea where this was going. What was she trying to say?

“The Foundation prides itself on recognising contributions and… commending those who contributed,” the researcher continued, now seeming less distracted and more sure of the words. “Even the contributions of D-class personnel are commendable, don’t think your actions never mattered. If they didn’t, we wouldn’t be talking now.”

“What do you mean?” D-22560, having entered this room expecting a punishment for some forgotten crime, hardly dared think she’d be commended for anything. “Like… an award, or something?”

In her mind’s eye she pictured a silver trophy on her window ledge, perched inconspicuously but catching the light. But in reality, she guessed it would be more like a plaque, somewhere on-site, or a footnote on a web page.

“A couple of months ago I wrote to 05… … _upper management_ , if you will... about you. I told them everything - what you’ve been through for my project, what you’ve _done_ for it. We know more about 049 than we _ever_ thought possible, we’ve got some incredible things planned with him, and it’s… pretty much all because of you. Now - keep in mind the process I applied for has only happened a handful of times in Foundation history. We can count on two hands… a member of D-class personnel needs to be proven capable of rehabilitation, and an overwhelming majority just aren’t.”

The girl’s very blood seemed to have turned to ice in her limbs. “What _process?_ What’s going on?”

Morrigan couldn’t help but smile widely. “I applied to have you _officially_ pardoned, D-22. It wasn’t a quick process, myself and J███ had to stand before 05 and say our bit. And today… 05 have spoken. Pending a few psychological evaluations, you’ve been approved.”

D-22560 only stared, jaw hanging open. Did this mean…

“D-22… please say something, tell me what you think.”

“What do I _think?_ ” D-22560 said quietly, still trying her best to take it in. She was in a state of utter denial. “You mean, I won’t be D-class any more? I go back to prison? I get to _live?_ ”

“Even better.” The researcher still beamed, watching it finally sink in, watching the utter joy spread over the girl’s face. “It’s an official pardon, not just from the Foundation but the charges against you. You won’t be going back to prison - you’ll be a free woman.”

“Oh my God,” D-22560 whimpered, leaning back in her chair. “Oh my God!”

She leaped up and threw herself on the researcher. Morrigan, probably having anticipated this, stood ready for the embrace. D-22560 squeezed her tight.

“Thank you!” she cried. Tears of pure joy leaked at the corners of her eyes. “ _THANK YOU!_ ”

“Don’t mention it, D-22, it’s what you deserve for putting up with all of it.” Morrigan eased her off, and, still standing, consulted her screen. “There’s stipulations, of course, you could say it’s more of a _technical_ pardon, but it’s the best you can hope for.”

“So… what happens?”

“Some people might say you’re still a prisoner, just operating under the _illusion_ of freedom. You’ll spend your life employed by the Foundation, in a role that doesn’t handle sensitive information.”

“So like, a janitor?” D-22560 decided she’d be happy with that.

Morrigan shrugged only a little. “If you want to be a janitor, you can be a janitor. There’s plenty of roles to choose from, so don’t make your mind up right now, and… you’ll have the opportunity to work your way up, same as everyone else, take on further training… But your tracker will be deactivated, we’ll get _that_ taken off…”

She gestured to the barcode on the girl’s left hand.

“...And you’ll be Andrea Cole. Aside from your employment here, you’ll be free to live as you want. You’ll probably be set up in an on-site dorm like J███ until you can get a place of your own. A lot of personnel live in ████, the commute isn’t so bad from there. Some live further out, stay in the dorms during the week and go home on weekends. You’ve got a lot of choices for housing, and you’ll have vacations, of course.”

“I get… fuck… I get to have a life! I _can’t believe this!_ ”

The researcher’s eyes narrowed a little. “They’ll be keeping a close eye on you,” she said, more seriously. “Honest mistakes are honest mistakes, but any deliberate wrong-doing will likely have you terminated. We’ll go over this again when it happens, but I wanted to tell you now.”

“Oh, of course! …When _is_ it happening?”

“Not until we’re finished with the MRI… can’t say anything until we’ve done it, I feel like we’ll go for far more than just the one day. So, until _that’s_ all done, or until we’re confident J███ can take over as handler.”

“That makes sense.”

“And you won’t have the opportunity to transfer. Some have, in the past, but 05 were pretty clear on that. Given your immunity, they want you close by in case we need your blood.”

“Even though you have J███’ blood?”

Morrigan grinned. “Greedy, aren’t they?”

D-22560 shrugged. “Suits me,” she said. “If I had a choice I’d stay anyway… I like you guys, and I have _no_ plans to move away from 049.”

Morrigan straightened up on the spot. “049? You… realise you won’t be authorised to see him once this is all over, don’t you?”

_Shit._

“You can’t… _separate_ us,” D-22560 said, unable to hide the way her voice wavered. She backed up a little. “I can’t leave him, I _have_ to be able to see him.”

The researcher could hardly look her in the eye. “You can surely appreciate I’ve worked… something of a small miracle here,” she said, ever so gently. “You’ll be the eighth D-class in Foundation history to _ever_ be pardoned. I can’t get any better for you than that, I just can’t.”

“No… I’m not leaving him! I-”

She cut herself off abruptly. _What? What_ did she?

When Morrigan next looked over to her, the expression on her face was so sombre. “D-22, it won’t matter when all’s said and done. When you’re given anmestic treatment you won’t remember _any_ of this.”

Amnestic. They’d never told her explicitly what that word meant, but D-22560 wasn’t stupid, she’d heard it enough times in context to figure it out by now.

“You’re… gonna _take my memory?_ ”

“Yeah. When your role on the project comes to an end, amnestics will be given and you’ll start fresh. From your perspective you’ll come straight into your job here from prison, you’ll know it as… an alternate way to serve your time.”

“So I won’t remember 049?”

“No.” The researcher shook her head surely.

“I don’t want this… I don’t wanna forget him! How can you _DO_ this?”

“D-22, you couldn’t have _possibly_ thought…” Again, Morrigan reached behind and played with her hair, a couple of locks came loose. “You know _far_ too much. About 049… and the more sensitive workings of the Foundation. The level you’ll be operating at… there’s _no way_ you’ll be allowed to keep that knowledge.”

“You can’t do this to us!” D-22560 cried. Her eyes brimmed with tears that didn’t fall. This couldn’t be happening, this _couldn’t be happening_. “After everything! After everything we’ve been through! You can’t do this to HIM!”

It wasn’t much of a consolation that Morrigan looked incredibly sorry. She sighed. “Amnestics are… effective on anomalies too. He won’t remember any of this. If you ask me, he’s better off that way, you both are.”

“No, _please!_ I _can’t_ forget him!”

“D-22…” The older approached a little, put her hand on the girl’s shaking arm as the tears finally streaked down her face. Some attempt at a comforting touch. “You couldn’t possibly spend your life with him. I know you’re heartbroken now, but when it’s all done… there won’t be anything. There won’t be anything left to upset you.”

“I don’t want it that way!” she howled, brushing Morrigan off and bolting for the door. “I _can’t forget him!_ ”

She was gone before Morrigan could say another word. She fled down the corridors, down stairs. D-22560 didn’t stop running those well-travelled paths until she reached her own level, and her own room, the vague thought in the back of her mind that soon these paths would be far less familiar. She swiped her keycard in the door and hurried in, letting it shut behind her.

The room was quiet, her panting the only thing to fill it, and she leaned back against the door, supported only on shaking legs. This couldn’t be happening, this was a nightmare. How could she forget SCP-049? Now she’d met him, now she'd known him, _truly known_ him. She knew him inside-out. There was no one else for her. She couldn’t forget him now.

D-22560 crossed the room and clambered up on the bed, not even bothering to take off her boots. Vision still swimming, blurred almost beyond recognition of anything, she reached for the tablet on her nightstand and turned on the radio. When it loaded fully, a familiar lilting melody filled the room, and D-22560 threw herself down on the pillows and bawled. She cried for some hours.


	25. Chapter 25

D-22560’s fist had balled tight around the bedsheets for some time, and now his own hand came to rest on top, the soft leather of his fingers slotting in between hers, thumb caressing her palm as best he could. The doctor’s heavy body pinned her down on the mattress, he lay flush against her back as he fucked her, his every stroke measured, manageable, but intense.

On top of her his body was hot, his hide on her skin, a layer of sweat on her back bound them along with the weight of him, but she didn’t care about that. It was hard to care about the heat, the small discomfort when SCP-049 whispered such sweet nothings in her ear - a near-endless stream of praise and promises under his every laboured breath - and his dick pressed expertly into that sweet spot inside of her, over and over, all the right places. Threatening to set her every nerve alight. She was so close now.

How perfectly he filled her up, like his very purpose in this world was to be inside of her. The tapered end of his shaft reached places no human could ever hope to, places she didn’t know existed before this. Before him. D-22560 stifled a heavy whimper in the pillows as he buried himself deep in that place again, biting down hard to keep herself from screaming out as she felt her orgasm build, rapid breaths heated and wet against the dry fabric.

“No… none of that…” SCP-049 panted. His hand came away from its place atop hers and he grabbed the pillows. Still rutting into her, he flung them across the room without missing a beat. They hit the floor and travelled some ways along, coming to rest somewhere near the opposite wall.

He seemed to delight in the sounds she made. He slid his hand underneath her naked, trembling body, snaking down her breasts, her belly, down her mound as she fed him fresh whimpers, open cries.

“Mon rossignol…” he breathed. He hammered on her clit, and as the girl clamped impossibly around his shaft, the anguished grunt in her ear was the reward. To her it was beautiful. “… _Chante pour moi_.”

Underneath him D-22560’s back arched, painfully far, as she came. Her mindless scream as orgasm wracked her could’ve put any SCP-049-2 to shame - anyone in the next room, even the corridor beyond, would first think that endless howl was coming from one. As she screamed, SCP-049 nuzzled at her spasming body, and she squeezed tight on his cock, uncontrollably, over and over, a dam inside of her burst and pure gold flooding through her very veins.

Somehow he held out until his girl was done, until those screams turned to exhausted moans and her body was limp under his. By now he fucked her frantically, driven wild by her delight and desperate for his own release, and she was content to let him do whatever he wanted with her. He came with a sharp sigh, not as loud, or as long, but equally full of passion. His hips jerked into her a few more times as his release filled her, before it was all over and the two lay there, hot and gasping for breath.

For D-22560 it was less comfortable to lie there without the pillows to rest on, for the next five minutes, and sixteen seconds, she’d have to settle for pressing her face into the mattress.

“... _Amazing_.” The single word was muffled as she sighed it into the bed. Inside of her, his cock still twitched a little. “You’re _amazing_ , 049.”

“My dear…” Again he nuzzled at her neck - it tickled, just slightly. “It is not I who is… _amazing_. We are as one. No man or woman has ever captured my attention quite the way you have. Never have I been so _eager_ to know, quite so… observant. It is _you_ who makes it… amazing.”

“Best sex I ever had,” D-22560 murmured, thinking to herself that there was no going back to human men after this, there was nobody else after him.

_Soon you’re gonna have to._

All too soon, she’d reminded herself of the inevitable. For just a moment she’d promised herself she’d forget everything - just while they fucked, at the very least. If she could put it away for the whole night, in the back of her mind, that would’ve been even better. She didn’t want to bring this in here, to him, and for a moment she’d succeeded in keeping it out.

But all too soon, she cried beneath him.

SCP-049’s eyes were wide, yet sad, as he watched her try to keep it together. “Andrea…” he began, lifting a hand to gently stroke her cheek, black leather catching wet tears as they fell and brushing them away. “My dear… please tell me…”

“What’s wrong?” D-22560 sniffled a little. She slid an arm under her head, something to rest on. “Nothing.”

“I can see straight through you.” His words had taken on a more stern tone now, D-22560 knew he wouldn’t be satisfied until he had an answer.

She sighed a little, catching her breath. Warm cum leaked steadily out of her cunt, down her body and onto the bedsheets beneath, despite the fact that the doctor was still hilted inside of her and still very, very hard.

“I… got offered a pardon from my prison sentence,” she began, eyes shut, not looking up at him. She didn’t want to see the look in his eyes when she said it. “When the project is finished.”

“I see.” He leaned up a little, bracing himself on his elbows. “Perhaps… _presumptuous_ of me to suggest it… however the fact that you are crying tells me… you shall not be permitted to visit once you have been pardoned.”

The D-class shook her head. “Worse,” she said. “Much, _much_ worse.”

With her eyes still shut, she didn’t see the plague doctor cock his head. All she knew was his pressing silence.

She couldn’t help but weep again. “They’re taking our memories. Yours, and mine. We won’t remember _any_ of this, we won’t remember _each other_. It’ll be like we never met…”

Weeping devolved to open sobs, hideous, into the bedsheets. SCP-049 was stunned into silence for a moment, staring blankly, but eventually he came to his senses and shushed into the girl’s ear, trying to sound soothing. As best he could from his position atop her, he hugged her tight. His shaft - still hard - pressed further into her, making her buck into the mattress.

Still, he didn’t say a word. He let her cry for a while. Grey eyes flicked up from his girl, to the door on the wall that faced him, and then the mirror. The bed was far too far over to catch one’s reflection, but he stared at the mirror image of his operating table, and that of the degraded corpse that lay upon it. They were both far too accustomed to the smell of decay and rot for either to give it a single thought until he looked.

He pulled out, softening cock disappearing back into its sheath and as he pulled out, a great deal more release oozed freely from D-22560’s passage and onto the bed linen. A wet pool, warm, grew beneath her and she let it happen, still crying, more quietly now.

“Andrea, look at me.”

When she finally did, sitting up, stretching her limbs out a little and turning to sit on the bed, she was thrown - by how serious his gaze was as his eyes bored into hers.

“Were I to leave the Foundation…” he began, taking great care over every word. “Would you come with me?”

D-22560 stared. “ _What?_ You’re thinking of… breaking out?”

An arm came about the girl’s body, pulling her in close. She leaned readily into his embrace, the hide rough against her bare skin, the doctor’s body warm and comforting. Head resting somewhere near his shoulder.

“The SCP Foundation has been a _very_ generous host,” SCP-049 continued. “I cannot deny that we did not see eye to eye at first… that effort was required to come to as peaceful an arrangement as we did.”

“Then _I_ came along, right?” D-22560 interjected.

“Yes.”

As D-22560 lifted her head, looking a little hurt as she stared up at him - not expecting him to _agree_ , he kept on. “This is not a bad thing, Andrea. It is wonderful, for we were introduced. For that… I would not trade the last year for a simpler one. However, I grow weary of the Foundation. I was offered something in return for violating you. Something I wanted. You know this. When that offer was made… I was confident the exchange was fair.”

“It wasn’t?”

“Did you not feel as humiliated as I?” he asked. God, his eyes were boring a clean hole through her, the girl seemed to shrink under his gaze as she nodded in agreement. “The experiments quickly became so degrading, did they not? I did _not_ enjoy being in that state - when restrained in such a manner it became even less bearable. It was humiliating. You _must_ appreciate, my dear, what the Foundation provides me, requires no effort on my part.”

“Bodies,” D-22560 said with some finality in her voice.

“Yes. It is much simpler, allowing the Foundation to provide these in exchange for my time… however I am able to source my own. This last year I have grown weary of the Foundation… I could only conclude the exchange was _not_ worth sacrificing my dignity.”

“You’ve wanted to leave all year? But, you didn’t say anything. Why did you stay?”

He pulled her in closer. “You were also suffering,” he said simply, as though that answered it. “More than I. And yet… you were not compensated as was I, it did not seem fair.”

“You… stayed for _me?_ ” she whispered. She couldn’t possibly have felt worse. “Wow… I’m… I’m sorry.”

“Do not apologise, my dear, I regret nothing. However it is all too clear - my time in this laboratory has come to an end. It is time for me to leave, and I wish for you to join me.”

It was so much to take in at once. “I…” D-22560 trailed off. On instinct, her left hand went to that rectangular lump at the back of her neck, a single finger rubbing back and forth along its flat surface from edge to edge. “I can’t, 049. I can’t leave the site. I’m tracked… _they_ don’t need to know where I am, it’s automatic. It’ll kill me.”

Slowly, those grey eyes narrowed, and SCP-049 said nothing in response. Then, suddenly, he was on his feet. He crossed the room.

“What are you doing?” D-22560 was unable to hide the trepidation in her words.

“It is clear to me there is but one solution!” SCP-049 called over excitedly. He grabbed something from the table and came straight back. “That tracker must be removed! I shall take care of that now!”

All the blood in her veins ran cold as ice when she saw the doctor was brandishing a scalpel, the cutting edge already crusted with some other poor soul’s blood but still glimmering faintly in the meagre light.

“NO!” the girl screamed. “Get that AWAY FROM ME!”

Before she could bolt for the door (for all the good it would do her, she was locked in all night) SCP-049 grabbed her by the back of the neck and forced her, face-first into the mattress. No matter how much she wailed in protest he didn’t let go, still pinned her in place, impossibly strong. She couldn’t fight him off, she couldn’t get up.

His beak turned this way and that, he was looking up at the ceiling. He was looking for the camera. Before long he found it, and moved around the girl until placing himself between her and it, hiding her from its view.

“ _STOP!_ ” she hollered. “ _PLEASE!_ ”

He leaned further over, and readied his scalpel in the other hand. “I understand you do not like needles,” he said, trying to be comforting but utterly unable to keep the lingering excitement out of his voice. He palpated the area as best he could without letting go, feeling for his target. “Or blades. Or any implement which pierces the skin. However this shall only take a second.”

That was all the warning he gave her before making the first cut. D-22560 shrieked in pain as the doctor sliced at her neck, crudely. He shushed her, fruitlessly, as he hacked away, warm blood trickled steadily down both sides of her neck as she gripped the bedsheets tight, trying her very best to ride it out. The thoughts came hazy to her - but she was aware it had been _far_ longer than a fucking second.

“ _FUCK YOU 049!_ ” she screamed, writhing underneath his grip and teeth gritted so hard they might soon crack as she felt the blade poke and prod at that _thing_ embedded in there. It was taking so long - why was it _taking so long?_ “ **FUCK YOU!** ”

“You do not mean that,” he replied, entirely unfazed. He was so close he must be leaning right over her to get this done, D-22560 screamed herself hoarse when two digits reached inside what surely must be a gaping hole by now, and then as quickly as they’d entered, they were gone. D-22560 froze, falling silent. The hand forcing her head down onto the bed came away, and, ever so carefully, she sat upright.

When something soft was pressed at the back of her neck she jumped despite herself - it was only gauze. When had he brought gauze over? She didn’t remember him doing that. The girl turned to face him, a strange sense of emptiness mixed with an overwhelming relief as she looked into his smiling eyes, and then as he glanced down, she followed - he held it out in his other hand and dropped the wet, bloodied tracking chip into her violently-shaking hand.

D-22560 stared down at it, poking it around her palm with the tip of a finger, blood smeared on her skin as it rubbed off the surface, surprisingly shiny, metallic. It was so small, looking at it now. _Tiny_. Under her touch it had always felt massive.

As the girl reached behind her with the same hand, and took over holding the gauze to the hole in her neck, she returned her attention to SCP-049, bashful.

“I didn’t mean it,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

“It is quite all right,” was all he said in return, a single, slow nod of his head. “Now you may come with me, I can only assume that shall be worth the momentary pain.”

Her face fell even more, were it possible. “I can’t,” she said, her eyes snapping away from his and fixing to the floor. “I just can’t…”

“Why not, Andrea?”

She felt sick as she recalled it. “What if we don’t make it? We’ll be punished and I… don’t… I can’t go back in there alone. I can’t do it. I know it’s been a… _horrible_ year, but they’ve been really good to us, they _both_ have. Everyone up above, they didn’t have to do what they did for me. If I leave with you, I’m taking all that and throwing it back in their faces.”

When she looked back up at him, D-22560 immediately regretted everything. She’d never seen him look so hurt.

“You’re… really not happy here, are you?” she asked, barely a whisper in the quiet space.

“No. I must leave.”

D-22560 shifted closer, and put her arms around the doctor’s neck, letting the gauze fall away. Head rested in the folds of his hood, the crook of his shoulder, a painful lump growing in her throat as she held him, and tears welled in her eyes. She shut them.

SCP-049’s own arms came about her small form. “I do not want to forget you either,” he whispered in return. “However, you _must_ come with me. Of all the gifts the Foundation has bestowed, you are the most precious, and yet, I cannot keep you if I stay. I _cannot_ leave without you.”

It was hard to speak, but she did her best. She leaned away, looking him in the eye. “I want you to get out of here,” she said. “I want you to be happy. _Why_ d’you need me to come so bad?”

“Is it not obvious?” SCP-049 stared her down intently. “I love you.”

A pause, brief yet stunned, before she hugged him close again. “I love you too… we’ll… get out, we’ll both get out of here.”

As she closed her eyes again, the tears finally streaked down her face. Really, she never had a choice. “We’ll be together on the outside. I promise.”


	26. Chapter 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song 049 sings under his breath is _Radioactive_ by Imagine Dragons.
> 
>  
> 
> ~~Been trying for a long time to fit that one in somewhere in this fic because I've been listening to it a _lot_ during the course of writing this entire thing and it always felt very appropriate~~

A sharp tap on Bailey’s shoulder roused him. He’d fallen into a daydream while he chewed his burger, but now he turned in his seat to see D-22560 standing behind, waiting expectantly for a response.

He swallowed. “D-22, d’you need something?”

The girl’s eyes flicked across to R██, seated opposite, for a moment before returning to Bailey. “Can we talk?” she asked.

The RA shrugged. “Of course! Take a seat - have you eaten yet?”

D-22560 didn’t move. “Can we… _go somewhere_ … and talk? In private?”

“Uh… yeah,” he said after a pause, uncertain. He got to his feet. “R██, can you watch this for me please?”

His roommate raised his eyebrows suggestively, offering the most coy expression he could muster.

“And shut up,” Bailey added, trying his hardest not to smile.

“What?” R██ asked through a mouthful of yoghurt. “I didn’t say anything!”

Bailey waved him off without another word, and left the cafeteria with D-22560. In the corridor, alone - for the time being at least - he stopped, unable to deny to himself he was a little unnerved by all the secrecy. This wasn’t like her.

“What is it?” he asked. “Can you tell me now?”

“No,” she said simply, and kept on walking. “Not here.”

Now he was truly worried. Though he hid it well, the man’s very blood seemed to run cold as they made their way through the facility’s ground floor. What was going on? He didn’t want to jump to any such conclusions but… what had D-22560 _done?_ What could she have possibly done that warranted all this… _secrecy_ , to tell him?

Finally the two came upon a storage room off a quiet corridor, and she stepped aside, waiting expectantly for Bailey to swipe his keycard in the door. When he did, she pushed him inside and the two were met with darkness. He could make out the vague shape of the girl fumbling on the walls for a switch, before she found it. Light filled the small room once she turned it on.

Bailey was hardly aware that he held his breath as D-22560 took a couple of steps closer, anxiously awaiting some terrible confession. Some twisted part of him actually awaited it eagerly - curious to know, in a sick sort of way, how bad it could possibly be.

She didn’t say anything at first, like it was still taking all her courage to spit it out. If he didn’t know way better by now, he’d think she was about to try and seduce him.

“I… we need your help,” she finally said.

He didn’t need to ask who else she was talking about. “What with?” he asked. “Have you talked to T██?”

“No!” D-22560 looked terrified. “She can’t know _anything_ about this! You _have_ to promise you won’t say anything!”

“I can’t do that, you know I can’t.”

However, the look on the girl’s face told him whatever this was, it was serious. There was a reason she’d come to him. He thought for a moment about the keycard she’d stolen, she could fend for herself, they knew she could, and whatever she wanted, they knew she usually found a way. Not many D-class made it out of the Foundation _alive_ , after all, and here she was, on the brink of an official pardon.

He sighed. “Fine. I won’t tell her. Please just tell me what’s happened, is 049 okay?”

“He’s fine- …well, same as he’s ever been." D-22560 averted her gaze nervously, not continuing straight away. "But I need to..."

"You want to break him out." Bailey finished her sentence for her, feeling his heart sink into the floor.

"Listen to me, _please!_ " she begged. "He’s not happy here! He wants out! He _needs_ to get out of here! I really don't wanna leave but he won't go without me!”

It took all Bailey’s energy to not throw his head into his hands and cry out into the cramped space. She wanted to break him out, _of course_ she wanted to break him out. Of _fucking course_ she did!

“I’m gonna kill T██…” he muttered, looking off over D-22560’s shoulder at an industrial-sized pack of paper towels, losing his composure entirely. “I told her this would happen, she wouldn’t listen. Saw it coming a mile off-”

“-Please, hear me out J███!”

“No, D-22! I won't! Why did you drag _me_ into this? I’m just doing my job, that’s _all I want to do!_ What d’you expect _me_ to do?”

He stared her down, looming over her. Despite being rail-thin, he was much taller than her, and she shrunk under him.

“I want to know,” he kept on. He was expecting an answer. “Why tell me this?”

“I thought, I… hoped… you’d help. Out of everyone here, I thought you’d understand, you have the power to help us-”

“-Why would _I_ understand? Became I’m immune?”

“Maybe! You’re not _like_ Doctor Morrigan, you’re…”

Bailey thought of the words even before she did, and in his head they cut him to the bone. “New,” he finished for her. “You thought I’d break him out because I’m _new_ here, like I haven’t had time to pick a _side_ or something, right?”

“...No,” it reassured him a little to see she did look truly hurt by the accusation. “You just always came across that way. Like you were different. Like you cared how we felt. _Don’t_ you… care how he feels?”

“Of course I do, D-22, I always have. But I’m _not_ going to facilitate a containment breach. It’s not happening. This job's important to me.”

It wasn't just his job on the line, he knew that much - what happened to Radford was still vivid in his memory. He didn't want to be killed. Only now, as he took a breath and opened his mouth to argue further, did he realise the girl had started to cry. Her shining eyes caught the light just a little as she stared up at him.

“How long has it been since he’s seen the sun?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper. “How many years? He told me he misses that, he _misses_ feeling the sun on his skin. He misses the wind on his face. You can’t keep him locked up in here, it’s not right, it’s not _fair_. He should be _out there_ , living his life. He misses travelling.”

He was at a total loss for words. This wasn’t happening, there was no way this could be happening, he just _couldn’t_ be in this position. How did he fuck up _this_ badly? In the deepest crevices of his memory lingered a couple of slides on a Powerpoint presentation, discussion over what to do in a situation incredibly similar to this one. It was part of the induction, after all, among many other things. By now he’d long forgotten.

“D-22,” he began, placing his hands on her arms. She didn’t recoil from the touch, but she didn’t stop crying quietly. “049’s better off here. Trust me on that.”

“You really think so?”

From the way she said it, it was clear she was dubious about that, so the man offered a weak smile that was meant to be encouraging. “You have no idea what we’ve got planned for him. We’ll get the MRI done, we’ll do as many as we need to. T██ is thinking once we have enough of a picture of what's going on with him... we might be able to intervene surgically, make him more… human. More like us. With enough time he might not even think about the disease any more.”

D-22560 pulled a face, like the words had settled wrong in her ear. “You say it like he needs _fixing_ ,” she said. “He doesn’t. He’s perfect the way he is.”

“He’s _dangerous_ , D-22. Not to you, or me, but we’re drops in the ocean, he poses a _real threat_ to _everyone_ he meets-”

“-I don’t care! I love him!”

She made every effort to keep it together but now the tears were streaming steadily down her face. “We love each other, we _don’t_ wanna forget we ever met, we don’t wanna forget this ever happened! You _have_ to help us!”

Bailey stared. There were dark circles under D-22560’s eyes, like she hadn’t slept much for a long time now. He couldn't help but wonder how long this had been on her mind.

“You want my help?” he repeated, ushering her to sit with him on a couple of industrial-sized packs of liquid detergent. “Listen to what I have to say _now_. Take the pardon. Be Andrea again. It’s your only chance to have a normal life… or a life of _any_ kind.”

She only sniffled in response.

“I’ll be there for you on the other side,” he continued. “We all will - me _and_ T██... R██ and S██ will help you settle in too, no doubt. You’ll have a good life here, you won't know any different. You won’t remember him but maybe that’s a good thing. You’ll find someone else. You’re smart, you’re good-looking, you care about everyone - you can have _any_ human guy you want on the other side- so long as they don’t know about this-”

“-I don’t _want_ a human guy! I just want 049!”

She openly sobbed now. Bailey put a tentative arm around her shoulders, trying his hardest to be of some comfort, his heart sinking further and further with every second that passed.

"Come with us," she said, looking up at him as the surprise spread across his features. "You're immune, we can-- all build a life together-- you know."

"I can't... D-22, that's ridiculous."

"But it's not... it-- makes sense, doesn't it? If you-- wanna help him so bad we can do it-- on the outside. Together."

Part of him wanted to laugh out loud. "I'm a developmental biologist, D-22... not a neurologist. I can't do _anything_ for him alone, and you know that."

“Then please…” she said it between sobs. “Just get _us_ out-- of here.”

Again, the RA sighed to himself. The words didn’t come easy, and as he thought about it he realised it was just about the hardest thing he’d ever had to do.

“…I’ll see what I can do,” he said. “Just, hang in there. Don’t do _anything_ until I talk to you again.”

He stared her down as seriously as he could manage, it was impossible not to notice how much she perked up at that. “Okay?”

Her shining eyes were wide, alight with a hope that Bailey had never seen in her before. Of course, she’d come to the facility without any. She nodded frantically. “Yeah, okay! I’ll hang tight!”

"I won't come with you. But I _will_ get both of you out. I just need time to prepare."

As they got to their feet, Bailey was caught entirely off-guard when D-22560 hugged him tight around the middle. The words were weak as they came out of her mouth, as though all the energy she had was finally gone.

“Thank you, J███.”

“...Any time,” he said with a small shrug. “Just… don’t tell anyone we had this conversation, _please?_ ”

As she let go of him, the girl motioned as if pulling a zipper shut across her lips, and Bailey chuckled nervously. He was the first one to leave the small room, shutting it behind before making his way back to the cafeteria. Without saying anything, he took his seat again as though he'd returned from simply using the bathroom, and picked up what remained of his lunch.

R██ stared first at him, then at the door, through which D-22560 did not follow, then back to Bailey.

“She’s hot,” he eventually said. “Really hot.”

The RA’s eyes flicked up to him. “I’d introduce you,” he replied. “But she’s taken, I’m afraid. Definitely taken.”

_Not to mention she won't be around much longer._

He stared absently at his cold burger, trying to find the will to finish it off but realising that was in vain. He wasn't hungry now.

Bailey dropped it without care, and got back to his feet. "I'll see you at home."

After clearing his tray, he left the cafeteria and made his way through the well-travelled paths of the facility, into an elevator, down into the depths of the containment zone.

It felt to Bailey as though he’d been a part of testing for so long now, having to watch SCP-049 rape the girl over and over, and while he hadn’t become completely desensitised to it before _that_ phase of the project came to an end it had certainly become _easier_ to be in there, week after week. It became easier to keep his eyes on the scene, to look out for the small details. For the changes. After all, he knew what to expect. 

It was impossible to not wonder, at times. Impossible not to imagine how it must feel - as a man - to be in that position. He’d often wondered how it must feel, how _he_ must’ve felt. Hard, needy, desperate, pinning down the nearest human being and doing whatever he had to do to feel release. That was a thought that turned his stomach _now_ , but were he in SCP-049’s position, it was a reaction that would surely be forced to the back of his mind, where all the thoughts would be shut away - her screams, her sobs muffled in his head, hazy like a dream he was already forgetting, and thoughts that he didn’t _want_ her to scream, or cry, wouldn’t come. Thoughts that he didn’t want to be inside of her at all.

When the elevator came to a halt - the basement level which contained the Euclids - Bailey stepped out and kept on. The corridors were barren, for a long time he was the only person to walk them.

He wondered how it must feel. He knew SCP-049 felt guilt, he felt remorse over what he’d done… after a certain amount of tests it was a more detached kind of guilt, like he was so resigned to what was happening it became more of a waste of energy than it was worth. Bailey wondered how it must feel, as orgasm faded out and the thoughts, the world, faded back in - to ‘wake up’ and see her beneath him, still being inside of her, to see her cower, face stained with tears. Knowing it was all his fault.

If Bailey ever found himself imagining he was a part of tests like these, as a man he’d always imagined being in SCP-049’s place. With the new discovery - that he was immune himself - he’d started seeing it more and more from D-22560’s position. Were _he_ found to be immune first, would it have been him instead of her?

The girl’s suffering had been clear, and he’d always felt for her, more than she realised, _far_ more than she realised, but the first time he actually imagined it from her perspective was, in the grand scheme of things, fairly recent - when he found out _he was immune_. How it might feel to walk in there, time and time again, knowing it was to be raped in whatever way the team saw fit, and knowing there was nothing she could do about it. She'd also become resigned to it after a while, and while the anomaly pushed guilt to the back of his mind, she pushed dread… and disgust… to the back of her own.

Would _he_ be quite so resigned? Or would he put up a fight? In his mind’s eye he saw it, a tangle of long limbs - scratches on leather, bruises on flesh - a futile struggle that could only ever end one way. Bailey imagined SCP-049's cock, tapered and lubricated, would hurt less inside him than a human cock - not that he had any frame of reference, it was only a logical comparison in his mind, given the differences in anatomy and physiology. He wondered to himself whether his own body would betray him, whether _he_ would get hard from it all. Would he come like D-22560 did?

The fact that D-22560 was a woman was just a coincidence. It would’ve been no different if it was him instead of her. It could’ve _easily_ been him.

He swiped his keycard in the observation room door, and made his way in, quiet despite the cramped room being empty, and approached the window. SCP-049 was there, stood at his operating table as usual, and for a while Bailey simply watched him do whatever it was he was doing in there, elbow-deep with both hands. He was singing something under his breath as he worked. Evidently the doctor could hold a tune well enough - perfectly, actually - for Bailey to recognise it straight away as the microphones fed it in, and given what he knew now, he found it rather ominous. Of course, he thought to himself, he could just be singing that because D-22560 had been doing so. Quite a lot, actually. _That_ was ominous, he thought to himself, in retrospect.

Everyone at the site had trusted her, himself included. That was exactly why he and Morrigan had let themselves become so close to her... and _that_... was the exact reason he found himself in this position. He shouldn't have let that happen.

Alone, the RA shook his head rapidly as though that might clear the thoughts from his mind. There was no point even thinking that - it was all useless now.

He leaned over and put two fingers to the large red button in the middle of the desk - the intercom. He pressed, but now that he had, words failed him. What could he _possibly_ say? For a long time, he stood, the channels of communication his way active, and said nothing.

Eventually, SCP-049 lifted his hooded head to the window, and stopped what he was doing. Those grey eyes fixed on a position maybe a metre to Bailey's left - the doctor couldn't actually _see_ him, he could only hope he was actually looking in the direction of whoever might be standing there, watching him. Though Bailey hadn't said a word, the anomaly must've heard something.

"...Doctor Bailey?"

Somehow he'd known. _Somehow_. Was he in on it? Or was that Bailey jumping to conclusions - paranoid, assuming the worst? Why _wouldn't_ the doctor assume it was him? He came down to SCP-049's chamber more often than anyone, just to spend time in there - once he'd been cleared to do so. It helped him unwind, although he didn't quite understand why, and the anomaly had always enjoyed the company. He'd enjoyed having a friend in this place, and on top of that the Foundation had given him a _lover_...

SCP-049 didn't move a muscle. Despite receiving no answer, he kept on.

"Andrea has spoken to you... has she not?"

The RA was still at a loss for words. He'd really fucked up, he needed to sit down and think. About everything. He still had a little time before the lunch break ended.

"I'm coming in," he spoke, before lifting his two fingers from the button, crossing the wide space, and swiping his keycard in the chamber door.

*

*

When Bailey got home that evening, pushing open the door into the hallway of the dorm, he made straight for his bedroom, ignoring his roommate entirely on the way through. 

“Hey, J███!” R██ called after him, swinging around the doorway to talk. “You want something to eat?”

Bailey didn’t look back. “I’m not hungry, thanks,” he said. “I just need to lie down for a bit.”

R██ shrugged and returned to the kitchen, and when Bailey entered his bedroom, threw down his satchel and kicked off his shoes, he didn’t even bother getting undressed before crawling onto the bed. It had been a horrible day, and all he wanted was to forget any of it happened. He’d take some of those amnestics right now, he thought to himself, as the conversation with D-22560 played out once again behind his eyes like the most intrusive movie ever made. SCP-049, on the other hand, had said little, but everything he'd said - no matter the content of his words - had felt like a plea for help. It damn near broke his heart to hear it.

D-22560 was right. He wasn't happy in containment, and for the first time, he yearned for a life outside those four walls.

He buried his face in his hands in a fruitless attempt to make it all stop. Once he did what he was going to do, there was no going back, and pure dread clawed at him from the inside, adrenaline burning in his veins like lava, there was no sleeping right now, maybe there wouldn’t be any sleep for the entire night.

He knew that he’d hate himself forever for what he was going to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... the next chapter is the final one. I'm kind of really nervous about the ending because I have actually no idea whether people will hate it tbh.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed the ride.
> 
> Yeah, I'm about 100% certain most people will hate the way this ends. I'm sorry about that but I have to write the story that I wanted to write.


	27. Chapter 27

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really sorry the last one took so long to get out. There's been a lot going on, been helping my parents move house and also developed something of a social life! (Bad time to take up 40K I admit, but it's done now). I also made mad edits on some of the earlier chapters in the later third of this story to try and get some of the weaker chapters up to standard, if you wanna see them they're as follows:
> 
> Minor edits to the very end of chapter 19.
> 
> Major edits to all of chapter 20.
> 
> Moderate edits to chapter 26.
> 
> Also minor edits to the crucial scene in the original story, just to get it closer to how it is in my head.
> 
> So with that in mind, this is how I chose to end this... I don't think most people are gonna like it and for that, I'm sorry, and I can only hope it was a wild ride up till now.

Dr Morrigan’s expression didn’t change, she continued to smile at her assistant as though he hadn’t said a thing. She must’ve heard wrong, there was no way he’d said what she thought he’d said. “Excuse me?”

“They’re making plans to break out,” Bailey repeated. As he said it, Morrigan noticed he was trembling a little, like he couldn’t hide how nervous he was. Already, she knew there was no way he was messing her about. “D-22 and 049. That’s what they’ve been doing down there.”

“Why would you say that?” she blurted out. Deciding that wasn’t the most appropriate way to gather the information she needed, she tried again. After a pause, she took in a shaky breath of her own. “I mean… what makes you think that?”

The man swallowed hard, and leaned over Morrigan’s desk, bracing his arms to support his weight. He didn’t seem able to look his supervisor in the eye. “I… …she told me. Yesterday.”

“ _Why?_ Why did she _tell_ you?”

“Wanted my help doing it. She said I’d… I’d _understand_.”

He lifted his eyes to her, finally. “-I took that to mean… she was under the impression I’d choose _them personally_ , if it came down to picking a side.”

Morrigan bowed her head in understanding. “What exactly did she say?”

“She said… 049 isn’t happy here, and it’s wrong of us to keep him locked up- which… you have to admit, she’s got a point, even if it’s the best thing for everyone…”

“Mmhm.”

Bailey’s dark gaze was severe. “D-22 told me she only wanted to get _him_ out, but he won’t go anywhere without her. She never intended to go against us, but she feels like she doesn’t have a choice.”

“Right.”

That was all she said at first, until fixing him equally, her concerned frown growing deeper. “You did the right thing telling me this,” she assured him. “It might not seem like it for a while, but you did. I can only thank you for that, J███.”

After that, the silence between them was unbearable. She _had_ to do something. There was no point wasting time, she had to take action _now_ , before the captives took matters into their own hands. Morrigan grabbed her keycard and slung the lanyard around her neck.

“Wait here,” she said, crossing the room and making for the door.

Bailey spun around to face her. “What happens now?”

“I have to take care of this.” She said it fairly casually considering the way her whole arm trembled as she reached out to open the door. “I want you up here in case things get out of hand. You’re too valuable to be put in that situation.”

“What I mean is, what… happens to _them?_ ”

The hand, still shaking, fell away from the door and hung at the researcher’s side. When she sighed out her breath there was no sound, but her shoulders heaved just a little. “J███… I know you’ve come to… care about D-22. So have I. This won’t be easy for me either-”

“-You’re not _terminating_ her, are you?” The RA’s eyes were wide, exuding the same dread that Morrigan felt within herself.

“We don’t have a choice, she _has_ to go, we’ve lost control and we need it back. Never… never realised she had _this_ much power over him, with _that much_ authority over him we _have_ to intervene. She’s too dangerous now.”

“You don’t have to _terminate her!_ Give amnestic treatment - wasn’t that the plan all along? There won’t _be_ a problem if you do that, _please_ don’t…”

He trailed off, seeing the stony expression fixed on his supervisor’s face, the ferocity glimmering in her eyes as they bored right into his.

“05 wouldn’t allow it,” Morrigan said simply. “Not now. I’ve gone above and beyond for that girl. For her _and_ 049\. And they took all that, and threw it back in my face. _This_ is how they thank me.”

Bailey approached, though he seemed uncertain. “That’s not what they’re doing, T██,” he said quietly. “That’s _not_ what they’re doing, and _you know it_.”

“I have to make an example of her!” she hissed. She did her best to square up to him. “As an _organisation_ , we have to show HIM this kind of insubordination will NOT be tolerated!”

“You’re mad at them!” Bailey raised his own voice to match hers. “I’d bet ANYTHING 05 would agree with me! D-22 was MEANT to start over, _EVERYTHING_ is ready for that! You want this because you’re mad at her! At both of them!”

“How DARE YOU ACCUSE ME OF-”

“Guilt, then?” Bailey gestured openly as he cut her off, his eyes fierce. “It was all your idea! The pardon! That “pastoral technician” bullshit! It was ALL YOU! Is that what this is? Cleaning up the _MESS you made?_ ”

“You think I’m not _FULLY AWARE_ I MADE MISTAKES?” Morrigan’s hands came up and raked through her hair, and she threw herself back against the door. “I shouldn’t have trusted her, I KNOW that! I MADE mistakes! It’s all I can _DO_ now to make it right!”

The researcher gave a sharp exhale into the office, and took a moment to compose herself before continuing. After the yelling, the silence rang in her ears and weighed heavily upon the two of them.

“I’m sorry.” Her eyes lifted to his. “We don’t need a shouting match. Now isn’t the time for that… we can discuss this like adults. Can’t we? I _know_ you were looking forward to being friends with her after the pardon… but it hasn’t worked out like that. It _can’t_ work out like that, J███. You’re not the only one who’s gonna miss that. I think we’ve _both_ learned a difficult lesson from her.”

Bailey’s tense form relaxed, slouching a little. He seemed to be trying to find the right words, Morrigan guessed he had something to say about that, but if he did, he kept it to himself.

“What about the project?” he asked. “What happens with _049?_ ”

“You’re immune. We both know you can handle it. You’re more than capable of looking after him off-site.”

“After _this?_ He won’t ever forgive me for dobbing him in - and he’ll _know_ it was me. No one else knows.”

The woman shook her head rapidly. “I don’t know. I _don’t know_ , J███. We’ll have to postpone it, but it _will_ happen. We’ll find a way.”

Again she reached behind her for the door handle, and as she spoke she tried to ignore the growing lump in her throat. “I’ll… come get you when it’s done. Stay here.”

With that, Morrigan opened the door and made her way out of the office, and along the corridor to the elevator. As she walked, it took all the strength she had inside her to shut out thoughts about what she was about to do. About _her_. She couldn’t deny it, Morrigan cared about her as though she was her own.

Of all her mistakes, that was the worst. Were the situation not so dire, the researcher would’ve actually laughed - it took twenty years, especially the events of the last one, for her to understand exactly why D-class personnel were only kept alive for a month. For a fleeting moment she wondered how many other researchers had their hearts broken before that became policy.

And SCP-049… somewhere along the way the two of them had gotten far too attached to him, too. Somewhere along the way they’d _all_ forgotten he was the property of the Foundation… him included. They all needed to be reminded of that.

Morrigan walked on. She couldn’t think about it, she _had_ to stop thinking about it. Once in the elevator, she avoided meeting her own gaze as her own reflection pouted back at her on the mirrored walls. A shaky hand reached out and she hit the button for the ground floor - not the basement levels. No, she thought to herself, she had to make a detour before going down to heavy, she needed to stop by the on-site hospital.

*

Aside from the occasional footsteps in the corridors beyond their containment chamber, so far away they were almost inaudible but still echoing so much throughout the space that they could be heard, and the occasional groan of the plumbing somewhere behind the walls, the space was quiet. As the two captives lay together in bed, his one arm wrapped tight around her naked middle and the digits of his other hand tracing unseen patterns into her open palm, the fluorescent lights up above switched on suddenly, casting light on them both. It was morning.

D-22560 tuned into her lover’s slow heartbeat against her back and slowly closed her eyes. She relished the soft pad of his thumb on her skin, and tried to imagine what he might be drawing. Or writing.

“When we get out of here I wanna go home…” she began. “Go home… and get my good paints, and a canvas. And I’ll paint you properly.”

The hardness, and warmth of his beak was at her neck as he nuzzled in. “The Foundation will surely come for us,” SCP-049 replied. “We shall spend so much time running… perhaps the rest of our lives shall be spent looking back over our shoulders.”

“...And looking twice at everybody,” D-22560 contributed. “Wondering whether someone’s caught up to us.”

“Indeed, it shall not be easy.”

“No, but we’ll be fine as long as we have each other, right?”

“Of course, my dear. My point being… surely it is… _unwise_ … to return home?”

Against him, the girl shrugged a little. “Last place they’d think to look, right? Who’d expect us to go somewhere like that so soon?”

The gentle rubbing at her neck stopped. “It is unwise,” he repeated. “Art must be postponed for the sake of our future.”

“So… where _are_ we gonna go? When we get out?”

“We cannot stay here.” The arm around her middle snaked around her more surely, pulling her body in even closer to his own. “Perhaps I shall take you to England.”

Again, D-22560 shrugged. “I’ve never been to England.”

“I would much rather we returned to France… however I fear the Foundation would again _expect_ me to return home. It cannot be.”

The two fell into a comfortable silence, and D-22560 lost herself in her own thoughts as she felt the doctor’s rough hood at the crook of her neck, and the tracing on her palm resumed. He was right, life on the outside would be a struggle. Each day would be a huge effort from start to finish - not a moment would go by without the anticipation of the Foundation catching up to them, and if they did…

The girl rolled onto her back. If _that_ happened, they’d have to move on. Start over in some other place, some other country. How many times would they have to build a life together from nothing? How many… _languages_ , might she need to learn? It was SCP-049 who spoke about a million different languages, she thought to herself, not her. And _she’d_ have to be the one doing the talking. He’d have to stay away from prying eyes.

It wouldn’t be easy, by any stretch of the imagination, she knew that. But they had each other, and that was enough to make it work, it _had_ to be.

“I fully intend to marry you once we are free,” he said, purring it into her ear.

D-22560’s eyes opened slowly, and she tilted her head to meet the doctor’s grey gaze, smiling a little. “Oh yeah? You don’t think it’s a little… soon?”

“Why must we wait?”

“I dunno… just… I’m a little young, and we haven’t been together all that long and…”

He continued to stare intently. “Yet you are willing to sacrifice your life here - a life that could have been… to take on an arduous one with me? Is that any less of a commitment than marriage?”

The girl’s smile widened until she was laughing with him. “Yeah… you’re right 049. No point waiting after… _that_.”

She reached out, the palms of her hands scratching over his hood, and pulled him in close. Not a moment after her lips placed on his hard beak, the door behind them crashed open. D-22560 jumped and sat bolt upright, clutching the meagre covers to her chest as she turned. When she saw the look on Morrigan’s face her heart sank - already she knew they’d been found out. When the guards came flooding in, one by one, to flank the researcher who now loomed over the two of them, a cold dread seeped into her every extremity.

She already knew the researcher’s hospitality had expired.

The girl cowered as she made an attempt to count just how many faceless guards had come in, just _how many_ firearms were now trained on the two of them, before Morrigan interrupted.

“Get up, both of you,” she barked. Kneeling to the floor, she threw the orange T-shirt and sweat pants at the D-class. She didn’t meet her eyes. “Put your clothes on.”

Without question, D-22560 did just that, pulling the T-shirt over her head with violently shaking hands and slipping it over her torso, to which SCP-049 still held tight. He let go just enough for her to dress but still clung to her, unwilling to let go for a moment lest she be taken from him - and that was a very real possibility at that moment, so she let him do what he must. Once her sweat pants were on, she stood, not letting go of the doctor’s hand.

As they climbed out of bed, the guards parted, forming a gangway, shoving them both to the middle of the room with their weapons, and although she kept a _very_ safe distance, Morrigan approached. Seeing the vicious look in her eyes, D-22560 shrunk away from her. Her heart pounded in her throat - this was it, she knew this was it. There was only so much one person could tolerate, and it would seem Morrigan had reached her limit.

“I’m gonna get straight to it,” she said darkly. “Consider your pardon rescinded, D-22. You of _all_ people should know better than stealing Foundation property. Or planning a containment breach right under our noses.”

With absolutely nothing to say in her defense, the girl bowed her head in shame. SCP-049 wrapped an arm around her waist again, pulling her in and holding her tight.

“It ends now,” Morrigan continued, and testament to her, D-22560 noticed the strain in her every word. “You’re gonna be terminated.”

“No! _You cannot!_ ”

While the doctor cried out in horror, D-22560 remained silent, only weeping, resigned to her fate but unable to truly come to terms with it. She fell into her lover’s arms and cried. As the rough hide came about her in a protective embrace, she could feel him trembling too.

She cried out in shock as a gloved hand, human, grabbed hard, way too hard on her arm and yanked her roughly away. One of the guards pulled her away, not letting go of her arm.

SCP-049 turned his masked head to the researcher. “Might you reconsider this decision?” he pleaded. “Is there no way? You _cannot_ kill Andrea! I shall not allow it!”

Morrigan shook her head, taking another step back from him. “No. She’s blown all her chances, and _you_ will learn your place, 049. She’ll be terminated. Right here…”

From her satchel she drew something, a syringe, D-22560 noted with a renewed terror, filled with a clear liquid. As the researcher removed the cap, the D-class couldn’t help but notice the long needle glimmering in the light, and with legs far too weak to support her, she dropped unceremoniously to her knees. Still she was unable to take her wide, wide eyes off it.

Morrigan passed the syringe to one of the guards, who held it out to the doctor.

“...Right now.”

SCP-049 froze, and with eyes equally as wide as the D-class’, only stared at it.

He shook his head rapidly. “I will not. I will _NOT_ kill Andrea. It is _NOT_ happening, Doctor.”

Her expression only became more grim. “You will. It’s either this, or we put her in with 173.”

“God… please no…” D-22560 whimpered.

At the quiet cry, SCP-049’s attention returned to her. “What might happen in the company of SCP-173?” he asked her, his every word heavy with dread.

“It will… snap my neck,” she squeaked.

“It wouldn’t be the most peaceful death,” Morrigan kept on, and the two met her eyes. As she spoke, the guard shoved the syringe into SCP-049’s still-trembling hand. “You could make it painless, 049.”

“...I cannot.” He too seemed like he was having trouble getting the words out.

“You’ll outlive her. Many times over. You’re better off not having to deal with that… end it now and save yourself the heartbreak. Besides… you _don’t_ have a choice. You belong to _us_ , and you’ll do what _we_ tell you. Not her.”

After that, a heavy silence overcame the room, and SCP-049 turned his head to D-22560, still knelt where she’d fallen, and back to Morrigan who kept away, guards filling the space between them… just in case, and then back to D-22560. In his hand, he readied the syringe, and a fresh sob escaped the girl as she saw that. Surely it wasn’t meant for her… he wouldn’t do that. He’d rather escape than kill her… wouldn’t he? He’d sooner empty that syringe into Morrigan than her… there was still a chance to escape together.

The two locked eyes, and in his she saw nothing that gave away what he could possibly be thinking. It was with a renewed horror, D-22560 realised she had absolutely no idea what he might do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had several songs in mind that felt appropriate to see this story out. For the end-credits song I chose _Amour_ by Rammstein. IMO it's "their song".
> 
> Thank you to everybody who read this, and to every person who kept me going with it, cheered me on and begged for more, motivated me when I lost motivation, and to every person who bounced ideas and headcanons to and from me throughout this. It's been amazing being able to talk about a character I love so dearly quite so intimately with so many people, and the response to this whole thing has been overwhelming.
> 
> <3


End file.
